“We feel it is fair that France assume its responsibilities toward those who were mistreated and ruined,” said Jospin, the guest of honor at the CRIF dinner, which was attended by several cabinet ministers, religious leaders and dozens of foreign ambassadors.
The measure represented a triumph for famed Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld, who has been campaigning for decades on behalf of Holocaust orphans, particularly the children of foreign Jews deported from France, who have never received any kind of restitution.
Most of the 76,000 Jews deported from France during World War II were immigrants from Eastern Europe.
“The French state of 1940 helped the Nazis deprive thousands of Jewish children of their parents, stole their childhood and plunged their entire existence into mourning,” Klarsfeld said.
“The French state of 1999 appeases at last the orphans in their old age through this moral and material compensation, which will help many of them escape poverty,” he said.
Between 3,000 and 5,000 people would be eligible for the compensation, Klarsfeld said.