U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, made the following statement today after a measure she authored -- H.Con.Res. 129 -- urging the German government to fulfill its moral obligations to Holocaust survivors and urgently and directly provide the financial resources necessary to ensure that survivors may live in dignity and comfort in their remaining years, passed unanimously out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:
"Germany is a close U.S. ally, and since the 1950s, it has accepted its moral responsibility to Holocaust survivors. However, even by its own admission, the German government's efforts to address the medical, mental and home care needs of all Holocaust survivors have been woefully inadequate. Nearly half of all survivors worldwide live at or below the poverty level and have little time to continue to wait for the bureaucracy and cut through the red tape. Survivors deserve better than that; they deserve to live out their days in dignity and comfort, and that is why my bipartisan resolution urging the German government to honor its obligations to Holocaust survivors and fully and immediately fund survivors' needs passed unanimously out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I will continue to fight for all Holocaust survivors until they get the justice they so rightly deserve and I look forward to the swift passage on the House Floor of the resolution that my friend, Congressman Ted Deutch, and I have authored."