Since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945, Germany has compensated victims of the holocaust to the tune of about 92 billion dollars. A porton of the compensation was earmarked for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany. This is a private New York-based organization that works to secure restitution for survivors and their heirs. Until the end of 2014, descendants may claim their family’s assets if they find their property on a list by the Claims Conference, called the Late Applicants Fund.
It just so happens that one of the folks that’s helping match descendents with the property is Gilad Japhet, CEO and founder of Israel-based MyHeritage. In just the last few months he’s matched about 150 names on the list with names in the MyHeritage Family Tree database.
To do this, Japhet put together a team of five employees, having them write a computer program that matches the names on the Claims Conference’s list with those on the virtual family trees. And MyHeritage is doing all this a “good deed,” asking for no compensation whatsoever.
Read more about Gilad’s project in the Washington Post; New York Times; or the Associated Press.
