"Return a particle of dignity." German pensions to the Jewish blockade

The commission on Jewish material lawsuits against Germany decided that the Jewish blows who lived in the blockade Leningrad for at least three months will be assigned a pension-375 euros per month. The Russian Foreign Ministry spoke out against the separation of blockade by a national basis. Correspondent North. I learned the realities from the blockade themselves how they relate to the decision of the German government

“After all, this story did not start today,” Lyubov Myasnikova recalls the blockade. - Eight people from our yard survived the blockade, all the Russians and one Jew Seryozha Gurevich, every time on September 8 we are going and celebrate this business. Once we gathered, and Seryozha says: "The notice has come that I am now entitled to payments as a victim of the Holocaust. It is so inconvenient for me, we all experienced it all together, but I will receive one of me-and I want to refuse." Our other comrade says to him: "Give - take it like that." We just grinned - yes, such a world, now Seryozha is a victim of the Holocaust, and we are generally nobody. I myself and Nashus was inconvenient to receive a blockade pension, since I survived and did not lose my health. Well, now these new payments - from my point of view, this is wrong. Although here is an important question - who pays. But even if this is the money that the Jews once took away, I think that they need to be paid to the real victims of the Holocaust, and not to the blockade, because the blockades are not victims of the Holocaust. I believe that it is unfair to rank people of Jewish nationality who were not in the occupied territories, to the victims of the Holocaust. But if they give them money - let them take it, for the sake of God!

Blocades are not the only ones to whom the Federal Republic of Germany authorized pensions. In total, 6,500 citizens affected by Nazism, including those who lived under occupation within Romania, as well as participants in the French underground, who spent at least three months in the borders, were included in the list. Gideon Taylor, President of the Jewish Material Claims Commission on Germany Claims Conference, expressed joy about the successful end of negotiations with the German government.

The last generation of the survivors is aging, and their needs increase

“Every year, these negotiations are becoming more and more important, since this generation, the last generation of survivors, is aging and their needs increase ... Even 75 years after the Holocaust, these symbolic payments provide recognition and return a particle of the dignity of survivors, taken away from their youth,” said Gideon Taylor. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the German government to pay pensions to all blockade, regardless of nationality with a flagrant injustice. In social networks and among the blockade themselves, disputes also arose - how ethical to pay a pension to Jews and whether they should refuse it.

“I believe that it is not necessary to abandon this pension, because all the German state has already paid all the laid backpersions, and these pensions will pay from personal bank deposits of the Jews, from which they were once taken away,” says Blocades Vera Somina . -Once upon a time, German banks have appropriated these deposits, and now the Jewish organization Claims Conference has achieved that this money pays Jewish blocked in the form of pensions. It is clear that they cannot be sure that those people who once took the money would give it to everyone today. And in pensions, they are sure to Jews. Of course, a certain inconvenience in this exists. I had a case when I received a pension at the post office-a woman stood behind me and saw how I fill the leaf-so much like a blockade. And she says to me: “Here! And we, fools, left for evacuation ...” Now I am laughing, and then I just felt bad. Well, do not envy such things! Everyone was ill, and, of course, there was no Holocaust in Leningrad.

“ But nearby, near Leningrad,” was, in Pushkin, how many Jews were shot ...

- Yes, my friends, older than me who lived in Pushkin, told me how scary it was. They saw this every day - like the people with whom they grew together, with whom there were excellent human relations - and suddenly they walked, reported ...

- Will you receive this pension?

- Yes, it will touch me. I remember how my employee once took me to the organization " Hesad Abraham " ( charity Jewish organization.-SR ) with the words: "From my origin you need to have not only troubles", I really liked them and remembered for a long time. It seems to me that this applies to these new payments. But can we forget how many the same Leningrad Jews lost their relatives and friends who died in the Baltic states, in Ukraine, wherever there was an occupation.

Such a pension is discord, says Elena Tikhomirova , chairman of the Society of Society of Society of Society of Blocade Leningrad.

- A couple of years ago, a German consul came to our organization, and we also talked about those first payments. We told her: "You have made a very ugly thing, giving these payments only to blockers-Jews." After all, then people lived in the city over a hundred nationalities, and they all suffered equally. And now payments of only one category are an ugly and politically incorrect step, I join the opinion of Sergei Lavrov, who said about this. That is, I do not mind, let them pay payments, but why should others suffer? The worse the Armenians who lived here, the Russians, in the end, the Germans lived here. I have a grandmother - a German, she died here during a blockade. So how can we say that for those there was genocide - and for us there was no genocide? No wonder the Nuremberg process was dismantled in the Nuremberg process with hunger during the blockade, but not quite clearly dismantled. After all, there was not only hunger, but also shelling, and most importantly, the Hitler command ordered anyone not to let anyone out of the city, everyone should be destroyed. There were many here, both Ukrainians and Belarusians, all of them in childhood earned illness, what are they worse? I believe that it is very ugly in relation to everyone else. This is a spit to all of us. But there are very few of us - on October 1, 60 thousand blockade in our city in our city, and in Russia - no more than 80 thousand. Surprisingly-after all, we all the time pierced that we had some kind of compensation from the Germans, even to take from the Nazis, even the former ones, and not very pleasant. But payments separately to Jews-this is to some extent, at the household level,-setting up some people on others.

The story of the payments of the Jewish blockades is an old story related only to the Holocaust, ” Alexander Frenkel recalls the director of the Jewish Community Center in St. Petersburg .

- According to Claims Conference, it turned out that those Jews who were evacuated are considered victims of Nazism - because they left the raised places, they were in danger, they were appointed payments. And those who spent 900 days of blockade in Leningrad - they seemed to stay at home, which means that they had everything normal. This was the “Hesad Abraham”, they fought for a long time, collected the material, shot the film, proved that they survived the blockade suffered no less and were no less victims of Nazism. And in the end, they were also equated with the victims of Nazism. Moreover, this is a long -standing victory, it was simply expressed in a different form before - there were no payments to people, but the Hesad Abraham received money for the service of blockade, from the same means that make the victims of fascism. And now it has come to payments - within the framework of general logic: yes, Germany feels its responsibility to the Jewish people, including those who survived the blockade.

- Once again: that is, earlier, only those Jews who left Leningrad to evacuation received payments before, and now everything, and who left, and who remained in the besieged city.

- Yes, it was previously believed that only those who left were in danger, because they fled so as not to be in the occupied territory and not to die. My mother, for example, receives these payments - she was evacuated by the child before the blockade itself, these are not regular payments, but one -time, and she received them two times.

- So, this is just a restoration of justice, otherwise it turns out that the blockade were, as it were, in a better position, which, of course, is ridiculous.

- Yes, the standard logic of all these structures was such - those who were forced to leave the right places, escaping from the right death, they receive compensation payments, and with those who stayed at home, everything seems to be fine. And now the logic is like that - yes, it was equally difficult for all blockade, but if they were under occupation, it was Jews who would inevitably died.

- And what about the fact that the rest of the blockade, in any case, many feel treated?

- Well, what to do - Germany pays the Jews money for the Holocaust, what can you do with it, it has long been known.

The Jewish material claims against Germany was created by 23 Jewish organizations, since 1952 it has been seeking compensations for Jews affected by Nazism.