Over 14,000 Holocaust survivors living in Germany: Study
January 23, 2024
Some 245,000 people who survived the massacre and persecution of Jews under the German Nazi regime between 1941 and 1945 are still living across the world, with 14,200 in Germany, a report published on Tuesday showed.
According to the study by the Jewish Claims Conference, the average age of the survivors is 86, with 95% classified as "child survivors," being aged on average just 7 when World War II ended.
The study has been released ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27.
It also comes at a time when antisemitic crimes are on the rise in Germany, with more than 1,200 such offenses committed since the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing offensive by Israel in Gaza.
Around 560,000 Jews lived in Germany in 1933, the year the Nazis under Adolf Hitler seized power. By the time World War II ended in 1945, that number was about 15,000.
What else did the study show?
According to the study, there are Holocaust survivors living in 90 countries across the world.
It said 18% are in Western Europe, with half of those in France. North America has the same percentage, while former Soviet countries are home to 12%.
Altogether 119,000 of the survivors, or 49%, live in Israel.
Women make up 61% of the survivors, and 0.6% of the survivors are aged 100 and over.
What did the Jewish Claims Conference say?
The fact that 5.8% of Holocaust survivors had made their home in Germany was a "sign of the stability of German democracy, which we must defend and preserve," said Rüdiger Mahlo, the German representative of the Jewish Claims Conference.
Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor pointed out that "most survivors have reached a period of life in which they need increasing support and care."
He said it was time "that we pay double as much attention to these people, whose number is decreasing dramatically. For they need us now more than ever."
Greg Schneider, the Claims Conference's executive vice president, said it was "also important to look past the numbers to see the individuals they represent."
"These are Jews who were born into a world that wanted to see them murdered. They endured the atrocities of the Holocaust in their youth and were forced to rebuild an entire life out of the ashes of the camps and ghettos that ended their families and communities."
The New York-headquartered Jewish Claims Conference was founded in 1951 to advocate for compensation to Holocaust victims.
tj/wmr, lo (dpa, AP)
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