manufactured by
Maschinenfabrik Esslingen in the
old Jerusalem Railway Station, shortly after delivery as part of the reparations agreement with Germany, 1956. Despite the protests, the agreement was signed in September 1952, and West Germany paid Israel a sum of 3 billion
marks (around 714 million USD according to 1953–1955 conversion rates) over the next fourteen years; 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress. The payments were made to the State of Israel as the heir to those victims who had no surviving family. The money was invested in the country's infrastructure and played an important role in establishing the
economy of the new state. Israel at the time faced a deep economic crisis and was heavily dependent on donations by foreign Jews, and the reparations, along with these donations, would help turn Israel into an economically viable country. The reparations were paid directly to the headquarters of the Israeli purchase delegation in
Cologne, which received the money from the German government in annual installments. The delegation then bought goods and shipped them to Israel, receiving its orders from a
Tel Aviv-based company that had been set up to decide what to purchase and for whom. A great part of the reparations money went into purchasing equipment and raw materials for companies that were owned by the government, the
Jewish Agency, and the
Histadrut labor union. Notably, much of that money went into purchasing equipment for about 1,300 industrial plants; two-thirds of this money was given to 36 factories, most of them owned by the Histadrut. At the same time, hundreds of other plants, mostly privately owned ones, received minimal assistance with reparations money. From 1953 to 1963, the reparations money funded around one-third of investment in Israel's electrical system, helping it to triple its capacity, and nearly half the total investment in
Israel Railways, which obtained German-made rolling stock, tracks, and signaling equipment with reparations money. The reparations were also used to purchase German-made machinery for developing the water supply, oil drilling, mining equipment for use in extracting copper from the
Timna Valley mines, and heavy equipment for agriculture and construction such as combines, tractors, and trucks. About 30% of the reparations money went into buying fuel, while 17% was used to purchase ships for the Israeli merchant fleet; some fifty ships including two passenger liners were purchased, and by 1961, these vessels constituted two-thirds of the Israeli merchant marine. Funds from the reparations were also used for
port development; the
Port of Haifa was able to obtain new cranes, including a
floating crane that was named
Bar Kokhba. The
Bank of Israel credited the reparations for about 15% of Israel's
GNP growth and the creation of 45,000 jobs during the 12-year period they had been in effect, though the BoI report also noted that the funds received were not crucial in that Israel would have secured the funds in any case from other sources.
Yad Vashem noted that "in the 1990s, Jews began making claims for property stolen in Eastern Europe. Various groups also began investigating what happened to the money deposited in Swiss banks by Jews outside of Switzerland who were later murdered in the Holocaust, and what happened to the funds deposited by various Nazis in Swiss banks. In addition, individual companies (many of them based in Germany) began to be pressured by survivor groups to compensate former forced laborers. Among them are
Deutsche Bank,
Siemens,
BMW,
Volkswagen and
Opel. In response, early in 1999, the German government proclaimed the establishment of a fund with money from these companies to help needy Holocaust survivors. A similar fund was set up by the Swiss, as was a Hungarian fund for the compensation of Holocaust victims and their heirs. At the close of the 1990s, discussions of compensation were held by insurance companies that had before the war insured Jews who were later murdered by the Nazis. These companies include
Allianz,
Axa,
Assicurazioni Generali,
Zürich Financial Services, Winterthur, and
Baloise Insurance Group. With the help of information about Holocaust victims made available by Yad Vashem, an international commission under former US Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger has been trying to uncover the names of those who had been insured and were murdered in the Holocaust. The World Jewish Restitution Organization was created to organize these efforts. On behalf of US citizens, the US Foreign Claims Settlement Commission reached agreements with the German government in 1998 and 1999 to compensate Holocaust victims who immigrated to the US after the war." ==Reopened claims==