The Belgian government and banks agreed yesterday to pay $170m to Holocaust survivors and families of victims for their material losses during Word War II. The decision to compensate those whose property and goods in Belgium had been looted by Nazi occupiers was widely welcomed.

Meanwhile, an official report released yesterday said Belgian authorities have been unable to trace most of its Jewish Holocaust victims, entitled to payments. The authorities have so far tracked down just over 20 percent of the 24,000 Nazi Holocaust victims or their descendants, handing out a total of 35m euros in the process.

The balance of 75m euros will therefore be handed over to the country’s Jewish Foundation, said officials of a special committee set up in 2001 to compensate Jewish victims of the atrocities carried out in Belgium, which was occupied by Germany during World War II.

(Source: AFP / EJP / AP)