Germany Ordered to Pay £40 Million in Compensation to Jewish Family

Anti-semitic graffiti on a shop in Vienna

DAILY EXPRESS: GERMANY has been ordered to pay a Jewish family whose chain of department stores was seized by the Nazis €50 million (£40 million) in compensation.

The Schocken family lost several shops in the east of the country after Hitler embarked upon his "Aryanization" of German businesses in 1938.

A Berlin tribunal awarded the family €30 million (£24 million) - the value of the businesses owned by brothers Simon and Salman Schocken - plus another €20 million (£16 million) in interest.

The German state can appeal the decision at Lepzig's federal administrative court in Leipzig, the tribunal said in a statement.

Michael Newman, chief executive of the Association of Jewish Refugees said: "It shows that as we come up to 70 years since the end of the war there remains a number of significant travesties that are only now being settled."

Salman also founded Schocken Books in pre–war Berlin before moving the company to the United States and palestine. » | Benjamin Russell | Friday, June 13, 2014