Tens of thousands of Roma Holocaust
survivors living in Central and Eastern Europe are facing a
desperate future and possible death without basic humanitarian
assistance, warned the International Organization for Migration
today.

Nearly 74,000 elderly and impoverished Roma
Holocaust victims have for the past four years received food,
clothing, firewood, coal and other forms of assistance from IOM to
enable them to survive, particularly through long and bitter
winters.

People are trying to live on state pensions
ranging between US$8 - $120 a month without any support from a
welfare system that once would have provided them with basic
shelter, heating and medical care. Many are also supporting three
generations under one roof as younger Roma are forced to migrate to
other countries in search of work.

Now, funds for IOM’s Humanitarian and
Social Programmes that help Roma, disabled, gay and Jehovah's
Witness victims of Nazi persecution, have run dry and the programme
has had to end.

“We are very worried about what is going
to happen to these people. We know that the assistance they have
received from IOM and its partners has helped to save lives and
that is, unfortunately, no exaggeration,” said Delbert Field,
head of IOM’s Humanitarian and Social Programmes. “This
winter, we knew of poor elderly Roma who literally froze to
death.”

“During the last three years, we have
survived on the assistance we received. Without the coal, we would
long since be dead,” said Stefan Lupasco, one of many
non-Jewish Holocaust victims helped by IOM in 17 countries who
receives US$8 dollars a month in pension payments.

Both his parents were deported to
concentration camps by the Nazis and many siblings died of hunger.
Like many of his fellow Roma, Stefan is illiterate.

“Unfortunately, Stefan’s plight is
not uncommon. Roma have been historically an ostracized community
without the same access to education, health, housing and
employment that others may enjoy and which are essential factors in
lifting people out of abject poverty,” added Field.
“Although some efforts are being made to address the
discrimination of Roma, it could take many decades before benefits
start showing. The Holocaust survivors we have been helping
don’t have decades. They have just a few years. We can't
leave them to end their already difficult lives hungry and
cold.”

About US$36 million has been used to help the
nearly 74,000 people since 2002 with funds designated from the
proceeds of the Swiss Banks Settlement in the US District Court for
the Eastern District of New York and from the German Foundation
“Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”.

The money has been used to help about half of
those eligible and in need of assistance, representing the first
formal recognition of the suffering Roma, disabled, homosexual and
Jehovah’s Witness survivors endured during the Nazi years.
The Roma represent the largest group of people helped and the most
socially disadvantaged. Their caravans were often ambushed by the
Nazis, occupants murdered and wagons burnt. Many people were
deported to concentration camps where they perished.

For pictures of survivors assisted by IOM,
please go to the "http://imagelibrary.iom.int/" target="_blank" title="">IOM Image
Library.  A copy of the illustrated final programme report
is also available on the IOM website.