Category Archives: Most Read

Most read articles, testimony, and progress updates from HSF-USA.COM

2004-2021 Homecare Funding Gap
Estimated homecare cost funding gap for survivor population in need.

2010
Estimates of survivors worldwide living in poverty or considered poor ranged from 234,000-260,000, based on data from the Claims Conference and the Jewish Federation System, with 55,000 in the United States, 74,000 in Israel, and 90,000 in the Former Soviet Union

2013
The Claims Conference reported 56,000 survivors receiving home care and a total of $182 million from the German government, providing only $3,250 of the $15,600 annual cost for each recipient– or 11 weeks of care.

2017
67,000 survivors received home care; Germany provided $356 million in funding.  Claims Conference Press Release, July 2017.

2018
76,200 survivors received home care; Germany provided $478 million in funding.  Claims Conference Press Release, July 10, 2018.

2019
78,000 survivors received home care; Germany provided $538 million in funding.  Claims Conference Press Release, July 1, 2019.

2020
83,000 survivors received home care; Germany provided $598 million in funding.  Claims Conference Press Release, October 14, 2020.

2021
Claims Conference did not provide precise number of survivors who received home care in 2021, only how many were eligible. Germany provided $582 million in funding.  Claims Conference Press Release, October 14, 2020.

Euro to Dollar Conversions available on Google Spreadsheets

see also “About a third of Holocaust survivors in the U.S. live in poverty. This group helps them.” The Washington Post. March 21, 2021.

Capitol Police defend the US Capitol building from encroachment by violent insurrectionists Wednesday. REUTERS/Leah Millis

Survivors Condemn Capitol Attack, Antisemitic Imagery of Insurrectionists

HSF-USA Statement on Riots at the United States Capitol
January 10, 2021 

As Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors, we are profoundly saddened and angered by the violent attack on the United States Capitol and Congress to prevent our Nation’s sacred peaceful transition of power. It was an insurrection, an effort to overturn the people’s will in the November 3 election. For shame! We abhor the violence that threatens our ability to live together in the diverse, free, and democratic United States that we so deeply love.


It is also painful, in the year 2021, to see so many people brandishing symbols of anti-Semitism and racial bigotry, such as shirts glorifying the Holocaust, a gallows and noose, and the Confederate flag, as they attacked our Democracy. We appreciate President-Elect Biden’s clear denunciation of the anti-democratic riots, and his recognition of their anti-Semitic and racist elements.


 Dangerous anti-Semitic conspiracies once confined to dark corners of the internet are gaining traction in “respectable” quarters, without clear condemnation by all who call themselves leaders. We have previously spoken out about the painful rise of anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence including murders at religious gatherings in Pittsburgh, Poway, Monsey, and in Europe as well.


We, the remaining voices for six million Jews who were murdered because of the “normalization” of these tactics in Nazi Germany and Europe, are speaking out to sound the alarm loud and clear. The poisonous political rhetoric from government leaders and media designed to arouse hateful passions, fan the flames of anger and violence, must be condemned by our leaders at every level, and by all of us in our families, businesses, religious institutions, and communities.

As Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors, we are profoundly saddened and angered by the violent attack on the United States Capitol and Congress to prevent our Nation's sacred peaceful transition of power. It was an insurrection, an effort to overturn the people's will i the Novemmber 3 election. For shame! We abhor the violence that threatens our ability to live together in the diverse, free, and democratic United States that we so deeply love.

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Unpaid Holocaust-Era Insurance

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2019

On Tuesday, September 17, at 10:00 am, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the subject of unpaid Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.  Further info and a stream of the hearing are available at the Senate Judiciary Committee website. HSF submitted the materials attached in the document below to Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham on Friday, September 13.

David Schaecter tells the AP: the companies have demanded original paperwork, such as death certificates, that were not available after World War II. The survivors want to take insurance companies to court in the U.S. to recover the money, but it would take an act of Congress to allow it. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

“Aging Holocaust survivors try to sue over Nazi-era insurance” AP story

“This is an insult to humanity,” said Schaecter, 90, president of the organization and a survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. “I think they are trying to sweep it under the carpet. The fact is, we are a dying breed. There are so few of us left.”

Read more in the Sun-Sentinel and Associated Press

Aging Holocaust survivors try to sue over Nazi-era insurance
Aging Holocaust survivors are trying to recover insurance policies that were not honored by Nazi-era companies, which could be worth at least $25 billion altogether in today’s dollars, according to the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation USA. The survivors want to take insurance companies to court in th…
The survivors want to take insurance companies to court in the U.S. to recover the money, but it would take an act of Congress to allow it. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
HSF-USA members David Schaecter and David Mermelstein gathered at Mo’s Bagels and Deli in Aventura with Curt Anderson and Wilfredo Lee from the AP. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Class Action Lawsuit Against Hungary and Hungarian Railway

Letter from Naomi Vifko, Corporate M.D.

I am a psychiatrist and the daughter of two survivors of Auschwitz, as well as other slave labor and concentration camps. The area of Czechoslovakia in which my parents and their families lived was given to Hungary at the time of the Munich Agreement. My father, William Vilko, was in and out of a “forced labor regiment” in Kiev for two years prior to being incarcerated in a ghetto, followed by a train ride to Auschwitz in late May of 1944. My mother, Olga Vilko, was also transported to Auschwitz during that time period. Their property was taken away by Hungarian Nazis, who continued to live in their homes after their liberation at the end of the war.

Click here to read the full letter.