Claims conference

Officials of the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany say they expect to recover less than $1 million of the $50 million in fraudulent Holocaust claims on behalf of Germany, which has now hired an accounting firm to conduct a broad audit, the Jewish Week has learned.

By disparaging the US government's support of demands that Poland compensate Jews for property stolen from them during the Holocaust, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski exacerbated the firestorm created by his government's peremptory decision to walk away from long-promised restitution legislation for spurious economic reasons.

As the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany seeks to root out additional cases of fraud, the $42.5 million scandal that has rocked the organization has rekindled dissatisfaction with the group’s annual allocation of tens of millions of dollars.

To address those growing complaints, Julius Berman, the Claims Conference chairman, told The Jewish Week he plans to announce “in a couple of days” appointments to a long-delayed special committee that is to review past and future disbursements.

Isi Leibler's Opinion article, "Clean Up the Claims Conference" (Aug. 27), shocked and infuriated me.