Holocaust survivors receive monthly allowance following recognition of them as Nazi warriors • The law allows thousands of shekels to be added

• Shmuel Biinowski and the Partisan Certificate // Photo: Coco

Recently, several Holocaust survivors were recognized by the Holocaust Survivors' Rights Authority, in accordance with the Nazi War Disability Act, in contrast to the Nazi Persecution Disability Law, which recognizes survivors.

Not many are aware that those who fought the Nazis during World War II may qualify for recognition as partisans in the underground or fighters in the armies fighting the Germans, most of them then boys or very young, and as such they are entitled to an additional allowance from the Holocaust survivors' rights for their part in fighting the Nazis.

One of them is Shmuel Binyovsky, 91, who for years received a monthly allowance from the Germans and a quarterly grant from the Holocaust Survivors Authority in Israel, but only recently, after the legal assistance in his case, by Attorney Adi Shvut, was he also recognized as a fighter and receives a monthly allowance, NIS 2,400, in addition to what he received before being recognized as a fighter.

Biinowski's story is nothing short of amazing. He hid with his parents in the Polish forests and remains an orphan from his parents who were murdered in a truck in a Polish forest and buried in a mass grave in Krakow. At the age of 14 he joined the partisans and fought the Nazis until the war ended. About two years after the war, he immigrated to Palestine as part of the "Irgun Ha - Bricha", discovered by the British and exiled to Cyprus, where he joined the Palmach. In May 1948 he immigrated to Palestine and was transferred to the Palmach base in Kfar Yona.

According to Attorney Sherry Vardi, a national attorney in the field of Legal Aid Holocaust Survivors, these are very elderly people who have only immigrated to Israel in recent years, and the same allowance can significantly improve their quality of life. Recognition as a combatant may earn a monthly allowance determined by the disability rate. : From NIS 2,300 to NIS 10,000.

Legal Aid estimates that there are still quite a few survivors who may be recognized as combatants, and this may greatly improve their quality of life, but they are not aware of it.