OSLO, Norway -- Norway on Thursday became the first nation occupied by the Nazis in World War II to set up a fund for Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
Parliament voted unanimously for a fund of 450 million crowns ($58 million), split between 200 million crowns for Jewish victims of Nazi death camps and their families and 250 million for Jewish organizations."We can never put right the wrongs committed against the Jewish people, but the government believes that a historic and moral settlement must be made," Health Minister Dagfinn Hoeybraaten told parliament.
About 2,200 Jews were arrested in Norway during the Nazi occupation in 1942. A total of 767 were deported to Nazi death camps, mostly Auschwitz in Poland. Just 30 survived.
Jewish groups hailed Thursday's vote, despite some complaints by families who were stripped of goods and property in the war that a 200,000-crown limit on individual payments from the 200-million fund was too low.
Of the 250 million crowns for a collective fund, 150 million would go to developing Jewish culture in Norway. Sixty million would go to Jewish institutions or projects abroad and 40 million to creating a Holocaust studies center in Norway.