Dutch lawmakers seek to preserve 6 Holocaust survivors’ aid

Dutch lawmakers are calling on the government to spare six Holocaust survivors whose assistance would be slashed by cutbacks.

The predicament of the six Jewish survivors from The Hague was reported last week by the Algemeen Dagblad daily.

According to the report, they are among approximately 2,000 elderly and disabled people whose eligibility for care at government-funded facilities has been revoked. Instead, they have been offered a plan that gives financial compensation to relatives willing to step in and act as care takers.

The survivors have almost no family. Approximately 75 percent of Dutch Jewry was annihilated during the genocide, a higher percentage than anywhere else in Western Europe save Germany and Austria.

“These vulnerable individuals need to receive the aid they deserve,” Sjoerd Potters, a lawmaker for the ruling VVD party, said on Twitter.

Opposition lawmakers Linda Voortman from GreenLeft and Mona Keijzer from the Christian Democratic Appeal also called on the government not to change the aid package received by the six survivors.

— JTA