Germany awards Jewish family $68m for lost assets

Schocken publishing family owned a series of department stores seized by the Nazis in the 1930s

By AP and ToI Staff 12 June 2014, 7:03 pm

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The State Museum of Archaeology in Chemnitz, Germany, a building formerly owned by the Schocken family. (photo credit: CC BY SA Wikipedia)

A Berlin court has ordered Germany to pay the heirs of Jewish owners of a department store chain an additional €50 million ($68 million) in compensation for property seized by the Nazis.

The Berlin administrative court said Thursday that the Schocken family lost its chain of stores, primarily in Saxony, during the Nazis’ so-called “Aryanization” of businesses in the 1930s.

Members of the family later founded a publishing house in Israel and own some 60 percent of the newspaper Ha’aretz.

The family was paid about 15 million euros for one building in the 1990s, but said the others were undervalued. In the ruling, the court ordered the heirs, who live in Israel and the US, receive an additional €50 million.

The best known building involved was built in the eastern city of Chemnitz by architect Erich Mendelsohn in 1930. It now houses the State Museum of Archaeology.