(February 12, 2010, Weil Gotshal News)
After a five-year legal dispute, attorneys from Weil Gotshal’s Frankfurt and Munich offices won a significant
pro bono victory on behalf of a Holocaust survivor, in which a German court acknowledged that a Holocaust survivor is entitled to a pension for survivors.
Under the so-called German "Ghetto Pension Law," certain former Ghetto inhabitants are entitled to a pension for work during the Nazi regime. The Fund was
set up several years ago as part of the wave of Holocaust reparations efforts. However, the German Pension Fund denied the vast majority of the initial applications. Several legal services organizations, including the New York Legal Assistance Group (“NYLAG”), sought
pro bono assistance for clients who wished to appeal the denial.
At NYLAG's request Weil Gotshal represented a former ghetto inhabitant who had been a member of the Bielski partisan combat group formed in spring of 1942. The client's pension application had been denied by the German Pension Fund; Weil appealed the denial as well as the subsequent affirmative decision by the Social Court. The German Pension Fund now acknowledges the pension application of the survivor, granting a monthly pension in the amount of approximately $550 and a retroactive payment of approximately $92,000.
The Weil team was led by associates Silke Baechle, Stephan Wachs, and Christian Timm Neugebauer, with partner Britta Grauke and associates Konstantin Hoppe, Mareike Pfeiffer, Eberhard Koch and Michaela Schmitt.
During the last five years, attorneys from Weil Gotshal's Frankfurt and Munich offices have represented,
pro bono, a substantial number of Holocaust survivors in proceedings before the Social Court and the Higher Social Court in Ghetto pension matters.