: Tuesday April 3 3:30 PM ET
: Austrian Fund Pays Out to Holocaust Survivors

Wednesday April 4 1:19 PM ET
Germany Hopes for Nazi Slave Payouts by Mid-Year

By Emma Thomasson

BERLIN (Reuters) - The German foundation overseeing a fund established last year for Nazi-era slave laborers said on Wednesday it hoped Holocaust-related law suits would be dismissed by mid-year so payments could begin to aging victims.

``The board expressed the hope and the expectation that the legal conditions for the start to payments will possibly be achieved before the summer break,'' foundation chairman Dieter Kastrup told a news conference in Berlin.

Kastrup, who is also Germany's ambassador to the United Nations in New York, said the foundation hoped that U.S. courts considering outstanding suits against German firms would take into account the urgent need of many of the elderly claimants.

The German government and the companies backing the $5 billion fund have said they will not begin payments to 900,000 former slaves and forced laborers until pending U.S. litigation is dismissed and ``legal peace'' is achieved.

U.S. District Judge Shirley Wohl Kram dealt a blow to many Holocaust survivors hoping for speedy payments last month when she refused to dismiss the lawsuits before her court. Both the plaintiffs and the German firms are appealing against her ruling.

A federal appeals court said on Tuesday it would rule at a later date on how it would handle the appeal against Kram.

Kastrup said the foundation had based its hope for a resolution to U.S. lawsuits by the German parliamentary summer break which starts in July on a prediction by the U.S. lawyer representing the plaintiffs that the appeal should bear fruit by the beginning of May.

Kastrup said while the foundation regretted the long delays to the start to payments, most members did not support changing the German legislation that established the fund to allow payments to begin before U.S. litigation is dismissed.

Some foundation members have argued that initial payments should begin before complete legal security is achieved for German firms as a gesture of goodwill, particularly as many elderly victims are dying.

Wolfgang Gibowski, spokesman for the German firms that have contributed to the fund, said industry, parliament and the German government agreed they should stand firm in their demand for lawsuits to be dropped.

``We must be consistent,'' Gibowski told journalists. ``We don't want to take the pressure off the U.S. courts.''

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