CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS SUE GERMANY FOR COST OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

Survivors' children suing Germany (JTA)
Children of Holocaust survivors are suing Germany to pay for their psychotherapy.

The lawsuit, involving some 4,000 plaintiffs, was filed Monday in a Tel Aviv court. The children of survivors argue that they have been scarred being raised by parents who experienced the Nazi Holocaust, and as a result Germany should pay for their psychological therapy.

Baruch Mazor, director of the Fisher Fund, which filed the lawsuit, said thousands of people raised by survivor parents suffer from depression and anxiety and cannot function normally at work or home. He estimated that some 5 percent of Israel’s 400,000 children of survivors are in need of therapy.

The lawsuit seeks the establishment of a German-financed fund to pay for three years of biweekly therapy sessions for some 15,000 to 20,000 people, at a cost of about $10 million, according to The Associated Press. The Germany Foreign Ministry declined to comment, according to the report.

Israeli and international law may prevent such a suit from being brought in a Tel Aviv court against a foreign government.