BOCA RATON, Fla. — Holocaust survivors on Monday celebrated the end of German insurance giant Allianz’s sponsorship of a Florida pro golf tournament, saying it may boost efforts to collect some $2.5 billion in World War II-era policies issued to Jews that they say have gone unpaid.
Survivors, their heirs and Jewish groups for seven years have protested the company’s sponsorship of the PGA senior tour’s Allianz Championship in Boca Raton, saying it failed to pay off policies of tens of thousands of Holocaust victims and other Jews who died under Nazi rule.
They say the company has demanded death certificates, which the Nazis didn’t issue to concentration camp victims, and copies of policies lost during wartime upheaval.
Monday was Holocaust Remembrance Day.
David Schaecter, president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA, said Allianz has refused to pay off a policy he is sure his parents bought because he couldn’t provide paperwork. His father was arrested by the Nazis in 1940. He, his mother, two younger sisters and older brother were forced from their Slovakian farm in 1941 and taken to Auschwitz, where his mother and sisters were executed and tossed into a mass grave.
Read the full article by Associated Press at espn.com.au.