| Hungarian government and Jewish communities agree on compensation | |
| The Hungarian government and the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities signed an agreement Thursday on collective compensation for communist -era confiscations, the state news agency MTI reported. | |
| The financial basis for the funding is real estate that belonged to the Jewish communities and fell victim to nationalization under the communists. | |
| Instead of getting back the actual property _ 152 schools and other buildings _ the assessed value of which is 13,511,000,000 forints (dlrs 63 million), the Jewish community collectively is to get a percentage annually, starting with the current year, when 608 million forints (dlrs 2.9 million) will be paid. | |
| "The money will be mainly used for education, religious services, social welfare , health service, and charity ends,'' Gusztav Zoltai, executive director of the Federation, said. | |
| There are between 80,000 and 100,000 Jews in Hungary. Some 600,000 were killed in the Holocaust . | |
| When the communists assumed full power in 1948, they started a wave of nationalizations that spared no one, including the Jewish community. | |
| On June 20, 1997, a similar agreement, the first of its kind, was signed between the Hungarian government and the Vatican . | |
| (ab/rp) | |