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From: C-afp@clari.net (AFP / Eszter Szamado)
Newsgroups: clari.news.features,clari.news.jews,clari.world.europe.central,clari.world.gov.politics,clari.news.issues,clari.news.minorities,clari.world.europe
Subject: After lost relatives, Hungarian Jews mourn compensation
Organization: Copyright 1999 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
Message-ID: <Qhungary-jewsURmQl_9FG@clari.net>
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Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 8:05:49 PST
ACategory: international
Slugword: Hungary-Jews
Threadword: hungary
Priority: regular
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   BUDAPEST, Feb 16 (AFP) - Ilona Gonda, whose father perished in  
the Holocaust, has just mailed 30,000 forints (125-euros, 
136-dollars) to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. 
   The amount is the money the 36-year-old received from the  
government in January as a one-off payment for her father's death. 
   "It's very humiliating. I don't know what to do with it. He  
should realize how little this is," said Gonda, who is among dozens 
of Jews who have sent back the compensation to the state. 
   The 30,000-forint compensation per head was allocated by this  
year's national budget, under a 1992 legal package that allowed 
compensation for deportation but failed to determine how much. 
   The one-off payments are not only for Jews. They are also  
allocated for relatives of people who were sent off to Russian 
gulags under communism. 
   Istvan Nemeth, 58, is among these. And having six brothers and  
sisters, he received only a share -- a check for 4,286 forints (18 
euros, 19.5 dollars) for his father who died as a prisoner of war in 
Russia after World War II. 
   "Is 30,000 forints the amount a father who died at age 40 is  
worth in 1999?" he said. "I feel his memory, and that of his 
fellows, is tarnished. Somebody could tell me how they came up with 
this shameful amount. 
   Orban's right-wing government, which came to power last May,  
allocated a total of three billion forints (12.5 million euros, 
13.63 million dollars) for the purpose, expecting about 100,000 
possible claimants. 
   The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Parishes (MAZSIHISZ) launched  
a petition this week to urge Jews to mail back the "the low and 
discriminatory amount which humiliates our dead, to state 
officials," or at least to protest. 
   "I personally know more than 100 people who have already mailed  
the money in protest" to Orban or other senior officials, said 
MAZSIHISZ head Peter Feldmajer said. 
   "But I know more than 1,000 who refused to accept it from the  
mailman," he added. 
   Jews argue they should get at least the same as the  
one-million-forint (4,166-euro, 4,545-dollar) compensation 
distributed to the relatives of people killed in the wake of show 
trial verdicts under communism. 
   Distribution of the 30,000 forint one-off payments started in  
January and so far, 64,000 out of 202,000 claimants have been sent 
their 30,000 forints, the National Compensation Office said. 
   "Of course lives lost cannot be compensated with millions of  
forints, but an amount given in compensation should express 
something," Hungary's chief rabbi Jozsef Schweitzer said. 
   "The 30,000-forint amount cannot be accepted due to reasons of  
principle. 30,000 forints nowadays express nothing," Schweitzer 
said. 
   Nemeth agreed. "It took me nine years to collect the documents  
certifying my father's death. I spent more on the forms, the 
envelopes and the stamps than the compensation I got," he said. 
  	   	

