The United States and Germany signed an agreement on September 19, 1995, providing for reparations for certain U.S.-citizen survivors of the Holocaust, with compensation to be paid in two stages. The first stage provided for compensation for Hugo Princz and a small group of other known concentration camp survivors, through a lump-sum payment to the United States of 3 million Deutschmarks (about $2.1 million). The second stage was to provide for compensation for additional, similarly-situated claimants. Legislation passed in early 1996 authorized the Commission to receive and adjudicate cases of additional claimants, a process which it completed in March 1998. Following further negotiations, the German Government paid to the United States in June 1999 an additional lump sum of 34.5 million Deutschmarks (about $18 million) in final settlement of any and all claims of United States citizens against Germany for Nazi persecution in concentration camps, whether or not they were adjudicated by the Commission. In the ensuing months, the Department of the Treasury completed the process of distributing the settlement fund to the claimants previously found eligible for awards.
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