Home Support for Survivors

July 28, 2011 by Warren Hurst
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New funding for home services for Holocaust survivors has become available for Sydney’s JewishCare.

 

The Claims Conference negotiates with European governments including the German Government for an allocation of funds to support services for survivors of the Holocaust .  Recent successful negotiations have resulted in an allocation of approximately $270m for services in 46 countries around the world.

For some years JewishCare has been receiving funding from the Claims Conference to provide Home Support for Holocaust survivors under the Tikvah Program.  The recent announcement has not only meant an increase in funds but provides some certainty for the next three years.  Home Support means that survivors who are living at home receive a number of hours of support to assist with showering, meals, cleaning and community access.  It also includes case management such as referral for allied health services.

As the funding is targeting the neediest of Holocaust survivors the funding to JewishCare comes with a new set of guidelines setting out who is eligible and what reporting is required on the expenditure of the funds.

People who apply need to consent to their information being provided to the Claims Conference, establish their status as a victim of Nazism, be assessed for their need for services and meet strict financial criteria.  JewishCare is required to collect all this information including a financial assessment.  The guidelines do mean that some survivors are ineligible due to this means test.

JewishCare is currently providing Tikvah Home Support to over 140 survivors and there is no waiting list for eligible survivors.   Phone 1300 133 660 to find out more.

Comments

8 Responses to “Home Support for Survivors”
  1. Henry Stern says:

    mY ARTICLE WAS PRINTED, wAITED TO GET AN ANSWER. gUESS HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER 65 YEARS BEFORE THE SUBJECT OF MY RESTITUTION COMES UP AGAIN. gOOD LUCK TO ME. Henry Stern.

  2. Henry Stern says:

    Page one.
    Just a few memories I would like to share.
    Published to my Journal.2/26/2012
    *******************
    Ran across an article on the Internet that got my attention
    And I remember it well, for I was right in the middle of it.
    ****************************
    Budapest-Hungary (1944-1945)
    Just another year when Jewish blood ran wild.
    I don’t know what the death toll was, in 1944 of Jews who were being killed without mercy, by the wild hordes of the Nazis.
    The numbers reached into the millions.
    They counted Six million Jews at the end of the war, and countless others.
    The death rate for World War 2 was supposed to have reached 60 to 70 Million souls.
    Please do not hold me to that number. For I was unable to count them myself since I had a rather hard time surviving this epoch on my own. *************************************
    All this was perpetrated by a so called people who considered themselves cultured, sophisticated, people of intellect, and highly cultured. That obviously lived by the motto of:
    See no evil–speak no evil–hear no evil.
    Just decimate them all.
    *********************************
    In case someone wonders of why I am pursuing this issue after so many years?
    First of all, I have been made aware by the fact that very little has changed in this world, since.
    Attila the Hun ca. 406-453 had the title of being the greatest mass murderer in his times. Many minor potentates since then, have tried to wrestle this honor away from him , I am not sure if anyone ever succeeded?
    But I am pretty sure that, Hitler and Stalin and Mao Zedong. Have been able to succeed without a doubt.
    Reason being mainly, The weaponry of the old days in the years of 406 would be pretty antiquated by to days standards. Imagine the time it would take to hack off a hundred thousands heads? Let alone millions.
    Whereas today we just push a button, and thousands of souls leave their home base to take a vacation to the never-never land.
    I wonder who’s job it became of gluing all those parts, that were blasted to
    02.
    smithereens.
    Wonder no more, for I was informed by impeccable sources that
    enough parts that were still in relatively in good order and in fair shape
    Have been gathered together and are being ecologically stitched together to saw together the biggest ever Afghan this world has ever seen.
    Interesting part of this story is that it became a real masterpiece which is still growing, and as long as people will blow each other up, there will be an abandonment of the human anatomy to choose from to fill the order.
    Here is an open secret that nobody has ever known.
    For this afghan will never be completed.
    Can you give me a valid reason of why not?
    *******************
    Are you talking to me?
    I thought I was.
    Think again, for you are asking the wrong……
    **************
    Here are some of the three biggest mass-murderers time has ever seen.
    And the killings are going on.
    Nowadays we call it ethnic-cleansing and the only thing that has changed, is the name of the beneficiary.
    We mouth the words, (never again!) but too many continue to mutter: After we have shaped this world the way we want it to look like.
    Since so few of us are aware of the fact, that when you have two people debating an issue, you usually come up with three opinions.
    *************************
    Back to the beginning. The killings shall continue as planned by the leaders who are momentarily in charge.
    What will I have achieved with this article?
    Blood pressure: UP.
    Solutions: NONE.
    Hope: NONE:
    Will keep on trying: You bet.
    *************************
    Sorry about that!
    Intensions; Went that away.
    Mind? What mind? Never mind!
    The article that got me started originally is still there, and I shall share it
    03.

    with you, because I said I would.
    Years between 1936, Germany, when people of the mosaic persuasion finally started to realize that in order to survive that madman’s regime, one
    Better start looking for a way out of Germany before one ends up in a K.Z.
    (Short for concentration Camp.) Those with money had little trouble in finding a country that would issue them visas and grant them emigration status.
    Those who did not? Got a permit from the German government to spend eternity in heaven. But in order to reach this heavenly real-estate one had to go through Hell first.
    I am not sure of who made up those rules, for some of the luckier ones, the price was, one well aimed bullet in the back of the head, and the gates opened………..
    I wish somebody, someone, anyone would send us a picture postcard, who has gone through that gate or gates ( Are you aware of the fact that ones a war starts, the influx of those who think that they going to heaven had to wait for weeks on and, before either to be escorted in by the heavenly Secret Service, and those souls who did not cut the bacon for one reason or another (In this case Kosher Bacon,) are being sentenced by a special Heavenly hi court, according to the length of their rap sheet and the crimes they have committed.
    Secret service?
    I knew you would ketch me on that one.
    Very few people are aware of the fact that emigration into the Heavenly real-estate, or grounds as some people like to refer to, have changed. Interestingly it was around the time, when a Busch started to grow at the heavenly gates, just a small bush, nothing really to worry about, but when 1460 days another bush started to take roots, the gate management started to look into it and found that some saintly souls, who turned out not so saintly, for some seeds were found of unknown persuasion and started to spread like wildfire. That’s when the boss decided to create an especially trained force to keep those gates protected.
    Meanwhile the gates have been fortified. Everyone coming in is double checked, emphasis is put on criminals, Child Molester, Rapists. Murderers, and the list will goes on. Thanks to people with vision and those who came up with the computer, that gives Heavenly estates the tools to screen those who need to be checked out.
    Especially those whose lilywhite soul is nothing more, but a sham.
    04.

    In case you are interested of what will happen to those who are being evicted from Heavenly Real-estate? Do not fret, for they will end up as space fodder.
    Junk, just like all that other space-junk that has been floating around for the last 50 years.
    Did you hear the story about that one space-traveler who came back from a space mission telling his superiors, about the incident that happened up in space? That flying through space he encountered more than one spacecraft with cosmonaut peering through the windows.
    Nobody has ever mentioned it before, so it can not be true. Can it?
    That human garbage found to be guilty of raping children of either sex are to be excommunicated from the human race, never to be reinstated.
    Their souls will be mixed up with space junk and forgotten forever.
    Wonder how many of the catholic persuasion are among them?
    Take the past and the present, I would not be surprised if they didn’t create another chapter, and are calling it: So sorry, the Devil made us do it.

    *********************
    Man did I get waylaid, where was I ?
    Fortification of the pearly gates.
    Wow. You are good.
    Half’s-timers setting in.
    ***************************
    Lots of Jewish prisoners ended their life in the back of an airtight truck suffocating from the exhaust fumes that were rerouted back into the truck.
    Quite a diabolical method of killing.
    ****************************
    Quite a few were hung by the neck. No one warned them though, that they had to go through hell first, before the gates finally opened.
    **********************
    Many of them had to dig their own graves. The next bunch were responsible to get rid of the just dearly departed, which of course was time-consuming. The Nazis put them on double time to dig but all this was still not fast enough.
    Being an ingenious people, the Nazis ordered earthmoving equipment and the count of those killed, rose dramatically.

    05.

    So they brought in earthmoving machines that dug huge eight foot by six foot deep channels 50 to 100 feet long, lined up prisoners, and there we found out that the Germans were equal opportunity murderers.
    For among those whose life was about to be extinguished, never even had a chance to tell them that they were good Germans god-fearing Christians falsely accused by their children either of being Jew lovers, worst yet accusing Hitler and his Nazis that it was their fault that they had not received any new toys to play with and having to go to bed hungry.
    ***********************
    The problem was solved rather efficiently.

    Those kids who had denounced their parents were picked up the next day and deposited with others just like them, for retraining and to become useful member of the third Reich.
    Those Nazis were organized all the way through.
    Next thing they dressed them into a Hitler youth uniform, including small scouts knife in a scabbard and were told that as from this moment on they are the servants of Nazi Germany and that their life belongs to Germany and Adolf Hitler.
    Worked like a charm.
    Have you ever witnessed and or heard a population of hundreds of thousands of people shouting:
    SIEG HEIL, SIEG HEIL
    over and over again? A sight to be seen. I know, for I was there.
    Mass hysteria!
    **************************
    I would not be surprised if someone within the Nazi hierarchy did not come up with the idea of using the kids in school, by asking them to come up with an idea of how to get rid of the most amounts of pigs and other two legged animals the fastest way.
    ************************
    And little Adolph raised his little hand and shouted, GAS!
    He had just past some of it, and when the teacher admonished him for that, he explained himself with, that his behind had fallen asleep and had started to snore.
    The class roared and even the teacher had a smile on his face.
    When the officials heard about that story, all they could think of was.
    06.

    GAS?
    An edict went out to the right people, and within a very short time the crematorium was working overtime.
    Hitler smiled, for he had created and solved the question for the final solution.
    *******************
    Damn! I got sidetracked again.
    *****************************
    This is noteworthy.
    As soon as Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 , people of the Mosaic faith started to look for a way out of Germany. For they saw the writing on the wall and saw what to expect, so they started to look for ways to get out of Germany. But many of the Jews in Germany felt rather save, for after all they were Germans first by nationality, Jewish by Religion.
    They had fought as Germans in the first world war. 12.000 German Jews lost their life’s. In other words, they had assimilated themselves.
    And that turned out to be their downfall.
    ****************************
    When 1938 came along and the Nazis made themselves heard, by setting fire to hundreds of Jewish businesses in Berlin and started torching their Synagogue’s, they finally started to realize that there is no more time to loose. But for many of them it was too late.
    The one with money had no trouble getting out, the majority of those without it perished.
    I escaped just in time to Budapest Hungary. Where eventually those Nazis caught up with me again in 1944 and tried their best to finish the job they had set out to do in 1938.
    Many Jews searched for places of hiding and or for protection.
    They were aided by a Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and other foreign diplomats who organized and procured false papers and safe houses for them. These actions saved tens of thousands of Jews. ( I had one of those. Saved my life.)
    *********************
    Be talking

  3. Henry Stern says:

    Follow up.

    Indictment of the German Reich.
    By a holocaust survivor who waited a long time to speak his mind..

    This letter is written to the existing German Government for whoever is in charge.

    You have decimated this world by six million Jews, over sixty years ago.
    There are six million letters floating around with only one question that they want you to answer.
    Why?
    As a survivor, I demand an answer to.
    *********************
    Why did you persecute me when I was only 5 years old.
    Why did your young bullies chased me down the street and beat me up just for not fitting the picture of how a real Arian should look like. And I was only 7 years old.
    ************************
    When I reached 10, you burned down my house of worship including my school of learning.
    In all: 101 synagogues were destroyed throughout Berlin, including almost 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses. 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Jews were physically attacked and beaten. 91 died
    As I was made to understand the same thing happened to two elderly gentleman in my family. Two brothers of my grandmothers. Adolph Neisser and Max Stern.
    That’s not being enough for one night, you had to break the glass of
    Night of the breaking glass. Better known as “ Kristallnacht “
    When I walked to school that November morning and saw the pavement covered with glass and the population plundering those stores, taking everything that was not nailed down.
    ***********************
    I realized that history was being made
    The day was: November 9 and 10 in 1938.
    Also remember that the police was standing around, laughing and egging on the population to take everything there was, for the owners of those stores won’t need any of it where they are going.
    That was in 1938.
    ******************
    And I was only 10 years old.
    **********
    Needless to say, that was also the year my formal education ended.
    By the time I was 12 years old, we had escaped to Budapest Hungary, and just in time too, If we had waited another day the Gestapo. [German secret police.] would have picked us up to be interred into a concentration Camp.
    You followed us by invading Hungary in 1944. And continued trying to finish the job that you had sworn to do.
    I was 16 when your bullies picked me up and put me into a slave labor camp and forced me to dig tank traps around Budapest. 14-hour work, very little food. Many of the people dropped dead from exhaustion, and those who just couldn’t produce enough work anymore, you shot.
    Then came the death march, on the road from Budapest to the Austrian border.
    End of the line was; Camp Mauthausen. Or Auschwitz. Few ended up in Austria where they used them as slave laborer.
    *********************
    I did escape the transport and ended up in the Budapest Ghetto.
    You almost succeeded in killing me there.
    I had to disguise myself and play the role of an ugly girl that had not had a bath and stank to high heaven. It worked to a degree. I was never looked at twice and never became a beauty. But I did survive.
    The Russians liberated me on Jan. 1945.
    I was all of 17 years old.
    More details in my Book. “HORST” By Henry Stern.

    Few years later after the war had ended; we put in a petition with the German Government asking for compensation.
    Here is what the German bureaucrats told us.
    Dear sir, I am sorry for all those bad things that happen to you and your family. Mind you though, that I had nothing to do with all that.
    Matter of fact, I had a Jewish friend but he just disappeared one day and I never heard about him again. I was at the Russian front and had no idea of what went on.
    Back to your application about compensation for your suffering, all I can tell you is that, if the Gestapo would have you and your family been picked up and you would have survived the concentration camp, you and your surviving family would have been eligible for compensation. But since you left Germany on your own free will, cancels your right to receive any compensation.
    When I asked him that I would have been better off being arrested and take my chances in a camp? He just looked at me and said; I did not make the rules.
    Now that I am almost 84 years old I am still trying to understand the
    reason for it all.
    By; Henry Stern
    Just read an article in the paper, New-York.
    Germany To Pay Budapest Ghetto Survivors.
    ********************
    Isn’t it just great, and devilishly clever?
    Most of those survivors are dead by now.
    Even if I do apply, I had a taste of German bureaucracy in the past.
    1.-First question would be: My name Birth certificate.
    2.-Can you produce three witnesses who will testify that they know you and that you were born in Berlin?
    3.- A witness, who witnessed your escape from Berlin in 1940 to Hungary?
    4.- A witness who will testify that he knew you and your family in Hungary-Budapest, and can be witness that you and family (my Mother and grandmother actually existed, and ended up in the Budapest Ghetto?
    The only answer to all those question, I can only remind them, So sorry Sir, But those people who could be of any use to me either died of old age, or your people, either hanged them, shot them or let them die in the concentration camp.
    ***********************
    Here are my demands.
    Your country has not enough money to make good for all the wrong you have done to all my people.
    You had the chance, you could have helped me when I was much younger.
    You waited long enough for most of us to die.
    Back to my demand. One-million Euro per each family member you exterminated and the same to the few are still alive.
    One more thing. And a written apology. Sincerely yours.
    Henry Stern.
    (Formerly: Horst Stern.)

  4. Henry Stern says:

    Looked for a long time to publis this little article. Hope this is ths right place.

    Indictment of the German Reich.
    By a holocaust survivor who waited a long time to speak his mind..

    This letter is written to the existing German Government for whoever is in charge.

    You have decimated this world by six million Jews, over sixty years ago.
    There are six million letters floating around with only one question that they want you to answer.
    Why?
    As a survivor, I demand an answer to.

    Why did you persecute me when I was only 5 years old.
    Why did your young bullies chased me down the street and beat me up just for not fitting the picture of how a real Arian should look like. And I was only 7 years old.
    When I reached 10, you burned down my house of worship including my school of learning. That not being enough for one night, you had to break the glass of all my friends’ stores windows.
    Night of the breaking glass. Better known as “ Kristallnacht “
    When I walked to school that November morning and saw the pavement covered with glass and the people exited those stores, taking everything that was not nailed down I realized that history was being made. I also
    remember the police standing there laughing and egging on the population
    To take everything there was for the owners of these stores won’t need any of it where they are going.
    On the nights of November 9 and 10, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting. In all 101 synagogues were destroyed and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, Jews were physically attacked and beaten and 91 died.
    That was in 1938. And I was only 10 years old.
    I lost many friends that year. Mostly deported to Poland where their fathers emigrated from.
    Needless to say, that was also the year my formal education ended.
    By the time I was 12 years old, we had escaped to Budapest Hungary, and just in time too, If we had waited another day the Gestapo. [German secret police.] would have picked us up to be interred into a concentration Camp.
    You followed us by invading Hungary in 1944. And continued trying to finish the job that you had sworn to do.
    I was 16 when your bullies picked me up and put me into a slave labor camp and forced me to dig tank traps around Budapest. 14-hour work, very little food. Many of the people dropped dead from exhaustion, and those who just couldn’t produce enough work anymore, you shot.
    Then came the death march, on the road from Budapest to the Austrian border, End of the line was; Camp Mauthausen.
    I did escape the transport and ended up in the Budapest Ghetto.
    You almost succeeded in killing me there.
    I had to disguise myself and play the role of an ugly girl that had not had a bath and stank to high heaven. It worked to a degree. I was never looked at twice and never became a beauty. But I did survive.
    The Russians liberated me on Jan. 1945.
    I was all of 17 years old.
    More details in my Book. “HORST” By Henry Stern.

    Few years later after the war had ended; we put in a petition with the German Government asking for compensation.
    Here is what the German bureaucrats told us.
    Dear sir, I am sorry for all those bad things that happen to you and your family. Mind you though, that I had nothing to do with all that.
    Matter of fact, I had a Jewish friend but he just disappeared one day and I never heard about him again. I was at the Russian front and had no idea of what went on.
    Back to your application about compensation for your suffering, all I can tell you is that, if the Gestapo would have you and your family been picked up and you would have survived the concentration camp, you and your surviving family would have been eligible for compensation. But since you left Germany on your own free will, cancels your right to receive any compensation.
    When I asked him that I would have been better off being arrested and take my chances in a camp? He just looked at me and said; I did not make the rules.
    Now that I am almost 84 years old I am still trying to understand the
    reason for it all.
    By; Henry Stern

  5. Henry Stern says:

    In case anyone is interested, I wrote my autobiagrophy, Born in Berlin 1928 and the books ends, correction, I am still alive and kicking. For those who read it found it interesting.
    Not a best seller due to the fact that its advertisement was strictly, by word of mouth, and lack of finances.
    As most people are aware , You have to be either Famous or Infamous to be a best selling author.
    Title of my book: “HORST” By Henry Stern. Can be ordered on the Internet.
    Publisher: Publish America. Thank You.

  6. Henry Stern says:

    If you read my statement above you can see that I have never received a cent of compensation from the German government.
    Even if I should put in a claim that Hitlers regime destroyed my chances for a decent education, insofar I had to quit school at the forth grade. If you think that I sound bitter, you are damn right.
    This new gesture of the German Government comes mighty late, especially for all the jews who went through hell during the war yeas , and never received any compensation. The majoriry of them has died.
    Now, it will take another 50 years before the payments might start. I wrote numerous letters to some magazines like The Stern, Das Bild. Needless to say no answwer received.
    Just for the fun of it, is there someone out there wh might be able to stear me to the right office?
    Pleae contact. Henryh12345@aol.com

  7. Lynne Newington says:

    Isn’t it wonderful the German Government is continuing to support the Holocaust survivors and nip in the bud, any sign of ante-seminism and comments without fear of favour.
    Angela Merkel stands tall among women in speaking out on all mannner of issues including the sex-abuse of all German Catholic children.
    God will honour her.

    • Henry Stern says:

      ************************************
      In one of my quests for justice, talking to one German official after the war about my escape from Germany in 1940 to Budapest, I was denied any compensation from the German Government, I was told that if I had staid in Germany, picked up off the street by one of those Hitler’s goons and sent to Auschwitz and would have survived the ordeal I would have been qualified for restitution. Since I had left the country on my own free will, I did not qualify. German Logic?
      Is there anyone in this world who might be willing to take my case and see that justice is done.
      Henry Stern.
      Henryh12345@aol.com

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