The United States government reached a $25.5 million
settlement with the families whose possessions were looted from the
Nazi “Gold Train.”
The government also agreed to acknowledge the U.S. Army's role in commandeering
the train during World War II.
The agreement concluded it would be impractical to
divide the money among the estimated 60,000 Hungarian survivors because
of the difficulty in determining who had what on the train, and the
expense of determining eligibility for compensation. Instead, the money
will be distributed to needy Hungarian Holocaust survivors rather than the individual claimants who lost family possessions.
About $21 million in funding for humanitarian services will be distributed
to social service agencies worldwide based on the percentage of survivors,
including 40 percent in Israel, 22
percent in Hungary,
21 percent in the U.S., and 7 percent in Canada. Up to $3.85 million
is proposed for legal fees and costs. Another $500,000 will fund an
archive on the incident and other educational uses.