BOCA RATON, Fla., Feb. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Sunday, February 7, Holocaust survivors, their children and grandchildren and many strong supporters demonstrated outside the Broken Sound Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida, protesting German insurance giant Allianz, A.G., which has refused to pay claims under their families' paid-for Holocaust era insurance policies to this day.
Aerial Banner
Explaining an aerial banner that flew over the tournament informing attendees that "Allianz Owes Holocaust Survivors $2.5 Billion," Jack Rubin, a survivor of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps who demonstrated on Sunday, stated: "It lifted my heart to see that banner in the sky to voice what the survivors feel so deeply. Most survivors are too old and frail to stand on the street and protest, so we decided to get the plane. How can Allianz's leadership sleep at night, when they spend millions of dollars for public relations like a golf tournament while tens of thousands of survivors are living in poverty and suffering every day without the care they need. Most of the spectators don't realize the harm Allianz has caused, but if they did we believe they would join our demands for justice."
Protester Arrested
In addition, we are deeply troubled to report that Dr. Jay Lieberman, the son of Holocaust survivors and son-in-law of our beloved colleague Ivar Segalowitz who recently passed away, was arrested by Boca Raton Police at the tournament with a banner about Allianz's dishonored policies. According to Dr. Lieberman: "Most of my father's family was murdered in Treblinka. My father-in-law Ivar Segalowitz was the sole survivor of a wealthy Lithuanian family. He survived Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Buchenwald, and served in the U.S. military after emigrating to this country. Despite his mother, grandmother, aunt, and uncle's names listed among German insurance holders, U.S. law barred him from going to court to reclaim his family legacy. Ivar's daughter, Genie Lieberman, testified about Ivar in Congress before Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Ted Deutch in 2014. I bought a ticket to the event and was merely exercising my free speech rights to show how unfair it is that Allianz is prospering, but so many survivors are living in poverty."
Historical Background About Allianz and Holocaust Era Policies
"Allianz has refused to honor tens of thousands of insurance policies it had sold to Holocaust victims – demanding original policies, death certificates, and other documents no survivors could provide after the horrors of the expulsions, ghettos, killing fields, and death camps. Today those policies are worth over $2.5 billion."
"It is historical fact that Allianz closely collaborated with the German Nazi regime, as its CEO Kurt Schmitt was Hitler's second Minister of Economics. Allianz insured Reich factories, barracks, motor pools, ghettos, and death camps -- including Auschwitz and Dachau – while Allianz was selling life insurance policies to Jewish families in Europe. Instead of honoring its insurance policies, Allianz has cynically paid millions of dollars in a massive public relations effort for this golf tournament, sponsorship of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, CNBC, MSNBC, Marketplace Morning Report, and "partnerships" with AAA, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, and others."
"Allianz was in secret talks to pay $300 million bid for naming rights to the new Meadowlands stadium in 2008 which were halted by the outrage of New York citizens after the negotiations were revealed. Outrageously, Allianz continues to spend millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists to block our basic constitutional right to go to federal court to recover for paid up insurance policies of our families which are after all legal contracts our loved ones paid for in good faith."
"What other Americans are denied these basic rights? Why is the Obama Administration, not helping us Holocaust survivors get our insurance money back, and instead slamming the doors of the courthouse in our face and supporting Allianz and other insurance profiteers such as Italy's Generali against us? Congress must enact legislation this session restoring our full legal rights as U.S. citizens to force these insurance companies to pay their bargained-for debts.
"How can it be that the tragedy continues that half of the Holocaust survivors in the United States and worldwide live in poverty, unable to afford food, medicine, dental care, eyeglasses, hearing aids, and home care. Germany is responsible to care for all survivors, but is forcing survivors to live in misery and protecting Allianz's Holocaust profits at the same time. For shame!"
WE Holocaust survivors' demand that Allianz and their affiliates:
We believe we will receive justice from the American People now to stop these horrible tragedies now.
The sponsoring organizations of the protests were the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA (www.hsf-usa.org), Shalom International (www.defendjerusalem.net), and NEXT GENERATIONS (www.nextgenerations.org), and Generations of the Shoah, International (www.genshoah.org).
For more information, see www.hsf-usa.org and huff.lv/VVInCv .
The Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA Executive Committee:
Israel Arbeiter, Boston MA
Dena Axelrod, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Renee Firestone, Los Angeles, CA
Ella Frumkin, Los Angeles, CA
Nesse Godin, Washington D.C.
Jay Ipson, Richmond, VA
Louise Lawrence-Israels, Washington D.C.
Herbert Karliner, Miami Beach, FL
Annette Lantos, Washington, D.C.
David Mermelstein, Miami FL
Alex Moskovic, Hobe Sound, FL
Leo Rechter, Queens, NY
Jack Rubin, Boynton Beach, FL
David Schaecter, Miami, FL
Anita Schuster, Las Vegas NV
Agnes Vertes, Weston, CT
Esther Widman, Brooklyn NY
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160208/330862
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160208/330863
SOURCE Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA
Share this article