Fund for Holocaust victims collects applications (04/04/99)

Fund for Holocaust victims collects applications

CHICAGO - The Polish American Congress Charitable Foundation has been notified by the secretary general of the Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust based in Bern that the first group of applications has been approved.

The Polish American Congress Charitable Foundation had been selected by the Swiss Fund as one of three organizations to accept applications on behalf of non-Jewish survivors living in the U.S. (see The Weekly, November 29, 1998 ). A separate fund has been established for Jewish Holocaust survivors.

The fund for non-Jewish survivors consists of $20 million provided by Swiss businesses, the three major Swiss banks and the Swiss National Bank. Each approved applicant will be receiving a check for $500. (This is more than the previously announced amount of $400.)

The letter of notification to the PACCF reads in part: "The persons for whom you have submitted an application have gone through unimaginable sufferings which can never be repaired or compensated, but only honored. We therefore ask you to tell the beneficiaries that this support is not a compensation or a restitution for harm and pain. It is a humanitarian gesture from a country which was able to stay outside the war and therefore did not suffer as much as others. We want to show the beneficiaries that their suffering has not been forgotten ... We thank you for your commitment to our common aim and for you cooperation."

Additional applications are still being collected. There is no deadline for making application for the grants, which will be disbursed as long as there are funds available. Beneficiaries of the Swiss Fund must be Holocaust survivors and needy (living at or below the poverty line). To qualify as a survivor of the Holocaust, a person must have spent at least one day in a concentration camp or extermination camp.

All applicants for the Swiss Fund should contact the PACCF for an application form, or forms can be printed off the Internet at http://www.polamcon.org.

Write to: Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust, Polish American Congress Charitable Foundation, 5711 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60646; or call (773) 763-9944.

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