Jewish groups seek to identify local Holocaust survivors for Claims Conference funds

Jewish community organizations are partnering on an effort to identify if St. Louis has enough Holocaust survivors to determine if the local Jewish community can become eligible to receive Claims Conference funds to help survivors in their elder years. This is the first step in establishing whether or not St. Louis can apply for Claims Conference status to receive these funds.

Jewish Federation, in partnership with Covenant Place, Crown Center, Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, Jewish Family & Children’s Service, and St. Louis NORC, is asking for the assistance of the community to identify survivors who lived in a Nazi-occupied region during the Holocaust or who were displaced from their homes as a result of Nazi oppression between 1938 and 1945.

Fill out the survey at the link at JFedSTL.org/claims if you lived in any area of Nazi occupation or terror from 1938-1945, including all of the occupied western areas of the former Soviet Union:

• Northern Caucasus between August 1942 and February 1943

• Pskov Region, Russia between June 1941 and July 1944

• Latvia and Lithuania between June 1941 and October 1944 (Kurland was liberated in May 1945)

• Estonia between June 1941 and October 1944

• Belarus between June 1941 and April 1944

• Ukraine between 1941 and liberation in March 1944 (although the part of Ukraine was liberated earlier, such as Kiev, in November 1943)

Leningrad/St. Petersburg between June 1941 and January 1944 (Jews who survived the Leningrad siege)

There will be an informational meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 14 at the Jewish Federation Kopolow Building, 12 Millstone Campus Drive. A Russian translator will be available.