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"With all those promises, I applied to ICHEIC. They said they could not find my father’s name. They sent a check for $1000 as a 'humanitarian payment.' ICHEIC sent out 34,000 of those $1000 checks. Survivors deeply resent the idea of a 'humanitarian payment' instead of the funds we know our parents set aside in case of a disaster. The whole thing was an insult to survivors, and it still is."

David Mermelstein’s Statement to the US Senate

I remember there was a plaque on our in house that said there was insurance, by Generali. My father was a careful businessman, so naturally he would have had insurance to protect his business and his family. Many survivors also remember those plaques, or an agent coming around every two weeks to collect premiums, but most of us 3were too young to know the name of the insurance company. Of course we have no documents for obvious reasons. In 1998, we worked closely with our Florida Insurance Commissioner, Bill Nelson, for a State law to make the companies publish all the names and allow survivors to go to court if they wouldn’t settle. That is when the companies came up with the idea of the ICHEIC commission – because of pressure from the states. Still, everyone told us ICHEIC was voluntary and not binding unless you agreed to a settlement. So, with all those promises, I applied to ICHEIC. They said they could not find my father’s name. They sent a check for $1000 as a“humanitarian payment.”ICHEIC sent out 34,000 of those $1000 checks. Survivors deeply resent the idea of a ‘humanitarian payment’ instead of the funds we know our parents set aside in case of a disaster. The whole thing was an insult to survivors, and it still is.

"With all those promises, I applied to ICHEIC. They said they could not find my father’s name. They sent a check for $1000 as a 'humanitarian payment.' ICHEIC sent out 34,000 of those $1000 checks. Survivors deeply resent the idea of a 'humanitarian payment' instead of the funds we know our parents set aside in case of a disaster. The whole thing was an insult to survivors, and it still is."

Full Senate Judiciary Hearing from September 17, 2019

Senate Committee on the Judiciary
September 17, 2019
Panel:
Mr. Baird Webel
Specialist in Financial Economics
Congressional Research Service
Washington , DC
Mr. David Mermelstein
President
Holocaust Survivors of Miami-Dade County, FL
Miami , FL
Ms. Anna B. Rubin
Director
Holocaust Claims Processing Office
New York State Department of Financial Services
New York, NY
Mr. Samuel Dubbin
Counsel to
Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA
Coral Gables , FL
Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat
Former U.S. Ambassador and Special Advisor on Holocaust Issues
United States Department of State
Washington , DC
Samuel J. Dubbin gives testimony before the Senate Judiciary on September 17, 2019.

Attorney Samuel Dubbin’s Testimony to the US Senate

After a decade of incremental home care increases, Members of the Senate Select Committee on Aging cited evidence from its 2014 hearing that “the levels of home care funding by the Claims Conference would meet only 25% of the current needs of impoverished survivors.”

To make matters worse, emergency services funding has not increased at all.

Samuel Dubbin before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims