According to a senior German official, the German government is expected to offer increased compensation to the families of the 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. This was first published today (Monday) in the evening news at Khan 11. In Germany, it is hoped that following the offer, the families will come to the ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the massacre that took place on Monday next week, but according to the source the gap between the families’ demand and the original proposal is so great that he finds it hard to believe that they will actually reach an agreement.
First publication A senior official in Germany: We will increase the compensation to the families of the Munich victims, hoping to end the crisis • The differences between the parties on the amounts are still large, and currently the families are not expected to attend the ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Munich massacre in a week @DovGilHar #The evening news pic.twitter.com/OGN7p1iYJZ
— here news (@kann_news) August 29, 2022
The lawyers of the parties are supposed to meet again tomorrow in Berlin and Munich, so the increased offer will probably be on the table. According to the current proposal, the total amount of the compensation fees will be 5.5 million euros which will be divided between more than 20 remains of the athletes, so that each one will receive about 200 thousand euros. The families rejected the offer, called it humiliating, and announced that they would not come to the ceremony next week.
Ilana Romano, the widow of Yosef Romano, one of the Munich murderers, said that the Germans should significantly improve their offer. “When the German government released two months later the three terrorists who were responsible for the massacre, it paid them nine million euros. We will not settle for less,” she said.
In his first interview since taking office, Germany’s new ambassador to Israel, Stefan Seibert, referred to the crisis with the families of the murdered and said that “it will be very sad if the families do not come to the ceremony.” In the exclusive interview with Dov Gil-Har, the German ambassador said that “when we talk about reparations, there should be reference to other terrorist incidents that took place within Germany, and to the reparations that were paid in those cases. This is the framework and proportionality we are trying to look at.”