Michigan Town Makes Amends for Discrimination

By Susan Saulny

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — Even though more than 50 years have passed since Sallie Sanders was a confused little girl wondering why her family was kicked out of their house for being on the wrong side of the color line here, the pain seems fresh.

“Just abruptly, we had to end up staying with relatives and friends,” said Ms. Sanders, a retired state worker who is black and who, at age 60, still has trouble recounting the ordeal without breaking into tears. “It was kind of devastating. My parents tried to protect us quite a bit, but I knew something was wrong”.

And something was. In 1971, a federal judge found that this old manufacturing town, five miles from downtown Detroit, had purposefully used urban renewal projects throughout the 1950s and ’60s to obliterate black areas from its two square miles, forcing the displacement of hundreds of families.

Although the judge, Damon J. Keith, ordered a remedy, and Hamtramck agreed to build new housing, it did not. For decades.

Now, though, in a time of deep recession and a housing slump in one of the most economically depressed states in the country, Hamtramck (pronounced ham-TRAM-eck) is at last fulfilling its legal — and what officials now call moral — obligation to provide affordable housing to the mostly poor families who were dislodged generations ago. And if the plaintiffs in the original class-action lawsuit are no longer living, as in Ms. Sanders’s case, children and grandchildren are eligible.

About 100 houses have been completed for rent or sale, and another 100 are on the way, paid for by a mix of local and state money.

In the last five years, the town, population 23,000, began building the new houses, but the project stalled because of the recession. It is only now approaching the final stages of construction, thanks to a recent increase in federal stimulus money. The homes cost $140,000 to $160,000, and subsidies can drive the price down to $100,000; most rentals are in the $400-a-month range, after government assistance.

But beyond the building, Hamtramck has changed in another way, too. It is now Michigan’s most international and diverse city, having evolved from a town that was 90 percent Polish just 40 years ago. With the changes came new attitudes about how to deal with the past.

Just weeks ago, Ms. Sanders moved into a new ranch-style house on the same street where her family once lived, and Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm personally handed over the keys. As a young lawyer, Ms. Granholm was a clerk to Judge Keith in the late 1980s.

“We went full circle, and it’s pretty wonderful,” said Ms. Sanders, whose parents, now dead, were among the 250 plaintiffs who sued the city. “To acknowledge that, O.K., they were wrong, that gives me a little satisfaction because my parents were mistreated so. I just wish they were here to see it”.

The home building is also what experts call a bittersweet finale to one of the longest-running housing discrimination suits to weave its way through court, having begun in the civil rights era. Beyond its age, the case is also distinctive in that it happened at all. While Hamtramck may be an extreme example, experts said housing discrimination against blacks in the mid-1900s was common, but class-action lawsuits were rare because of their expense and complexity.

Some contend that urban renewal projects were routinely used to demolish black areas, and that most of the housing was never replaced.

“This case is unusual in a good way,” said Victor Goode, a lawyer with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Michael Barnhart, an expert on fair-housing law and the lead lawyer in the Hamtramck case, agreed. “This kind of discrimination happened all over the country,” Mr. Barnhart said, citing Chicago, Detroit and other cities.

Over the last 10 years, as the settlement appeared to be coming to fruition, Mr. Barnhart and a local minister, the Rev. Joseph R. Jordan, met with surviving plaintiffs and their families just about weekly, spending hours trying to work out the details of moving hundreds of families back to town, most from Detroit.

“We had tried several times over the years to get something started, but really couldn’t find the funding,” Mr. Barnhart said.

Judge Keith, who now sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, called the case “difficult” and “depressing” in an interview. But, he added: “I was there to see Sallie Sanders get the keys. It was meaningful to me as a human being”.

Charnita Monday, 64, is renting one of the new houses. She moved to Hamtramck from Bessemer, Ala., looking for factory work in the late 1960s. The home she bought was among those condemned.

“The judge just kept hammering on the case, and all those years, they wouldn’t let it go,” said Ms. Monday, who is black. “I think an injustice has been righted”.

“I had gotten physically tired, mentally tired and even tired of praying,” she said. “But now, it’s like you got a new life, you know?”

In his 1971 opinion, Judge Keith wrote that testimony showed that Hamtramck officials were well aware of the difficulties their actions caused for blacks, but that they “ignored their requests for assistance, failed to investigate complaints and in no way compensated such displacees for the loss suffered”.

He also chastised the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for approving Hamtramck’s plans and failing to protect the plaintiffs’ rights.

After decades, Hamtramck has an opportunity, however painful, to come to terms with itself.

“Nobody with a conscience wants the burden of this enormous charge of racial discrimination to be hanging over them and who they are,” said Mayor Karen Majewski. “It’s important that we do whatever we can to redeem ourselves, our history and reputation.”

“And it’s been very hard to find a way to do that,” Ms. Majewski said, “because you know what this economy is like”.

Hamtramck, despite its size, has always had a large sense of self and pride — so much so that it refused to be annexed by Detroit like so many other small towns were in the early 1900s, forcing the city to grow around it. As a result, Hamtramck, originally a homogenous village, is now a city within a city, and in the last few decades it has become a first stop for immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen, Albania and Lebanon, among a host of other countries. As of the 2000 census, 41 percent of Hamtramck’s population was foreign-born.

Alongside church bells, the Muslim call to prayer is broadcast by loudspeakers every day. Twenty-five languages are spoken in the public schools.

To Mr. Jordan, the minister, Hamtramck is almost unrecognizable as the same place that tore down his friends’ neighborhoods. “We have made tremendous progress,” he said.

Ms. Monday said she had been distraught after her house was demolished and she had to move her five young children into a small apartment in Detroit, where she lived until her new home became available in 2008.

“When I left, I was bitter,” she said. “It’s a different place now. It’s been good to me, and I’m happy”.

The New York Times

Radiation murder libel payout for Boris Berezovsky

PA

Boris Berezovsky won £150,000 High Court libel damages today over claims on a Russian TV broadcast about the radiation poisoning murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

The 63-year-old Russian businessman, who was granted political asylum in the UK in September 2003, had sued over an April 2007 broadcast on the state-owned TV channel RTR Planeta, which is available by satellite in the UK.

During the hearing in London, Mr Justice Eady heard that the Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR), which has never suggested that what it broadcast was true, had declined to take part in the proceedings.

It left Vladimir Terluk, who Mr Berezovsky alleged was the silhouetted figure called Pyotr featured in the programme, "to face the music on his own", unrepresented by lawyers.

The judge, who tried the case without a jury, said: "I can say unequivocally that there is no evidence before me that Mr Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr Litvinenko. Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it".

The court had heard that the cornerstone of the programme as a whole was to accuse Mr Berezovsky of the 2006 London murder of Mr Litvinenko.

The motive was said to be that Mr Litvinenko was a witness to a conspiracy in 2003 to avoid Mr Berezovsky's extradition and to obtain his political asylum by procuring false evidence from Mr Terluk that there was an FSB security service plot to kill Mr Berezovsky.

It was said on the programme that Mr Berezovsky had been party to threats to Mr Terluk's life.

The judge rejected Mr Terluk's claim that the alleged plot to procure from him false evidence was true, saying: "I am driven to conclude that the central allegation that is directly attributable to Mr Terluk in the programme is false."

He concluded: "I see no evidence at all of any risk to Mr Terluk's safety and welfare originating with Mr Berezovsky or his entourage".

He said the allegation was calculated to put Mr Berezovsky's refugee status at risk.

Mr Berezovsky, who now lives in Surrey, had told the court that Mr Litvinenko, whom he knew as Sasha, had twice saved his life, and their shared history as exiles and opponents of President Vladimir Putin and the FSB had cemented their friendship.

He said he was concerned about the damage which the "absolutely outrageous" allegation would cause to his reputation.

After the ruling, he said: "I have no doubt that, in making this programme, the purpose of RTR and the Russian authorities was to undermine my asylum status in the UK and to put the investigation of Sasha Litvinenko's murder on the wrong track.

"I am pleased that the court, through its judgment, has unequivocally demolished RTR's claims.

"I trust the conclusions of the British investigators that the trail leads to Russia, and I hope that one day justice will prevail".

Both RTR and Mr Terluk, who denied in court that he was Pyotr and pleaded justification, are jointly liable for the damages.

The judge said there were likely to be formidable obstacles in recovering the money.

"This may indeed be a matter of only peripheral interest to Mr Berezovsky. I doubt that he brought the proceedings to make money. It will be for him to decide whether it is worthwhile to attempt to enforce the award".

Although RTR was responsible for the content of the programme as a whole, the judge found that Mr Terluk was not personally responsible for any allegation that Mr Berezovsky was implicated in Mr Litvinenko's murder.

The judge said the award would have been higher if he was also compensating for the equally unfounded allegation that Mr Berezovsky was responsible.

In his ruling, Mr Justice Eady said that the programme, Vesti Nedeli - the equivalent of BBC's Newsnight - was probably seen by thousands in the UK.

He said that he had "no doubt" that Pyotr was indeed Mr Terluk.

He added: "It would be unreal to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of many people, including Russian speakers living in this country, Mr Berezovsky has acquired the reputation of a criminal on the run from Russian justice.

"He has been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment in his absence.

"On the other hand, he is seen by others as a political dissident who is working for justice and democratisation. Many see the criminal proceedings against him as politically motivated.

"It is not for me to take sides in that wider debate. I need to focus only upon the specific issues raised in this litigation. I merely recognise the realities.

"He does not have a settled 'general bad reputation'. There are contrasting views. None of this means that he is deprived of the right to sue these defendants in respect of the broadcast and, if successful, to recover damages by way of vindication".

He concluded that the allegation was serious and had gone uncorrected for about three years.

"Obviously, many people have fixed views about Mr Berezovsky and most will not change them as a result of this judgment.

"He is nevertheless entitled to his remedy as reflecting the court's clear and unequivocal finding, on the evidence, that the relevant allegations are false".

The Independent

Taronga's 'miracle' elephant 'doing well'

GLENDA KWEK

The "miracle" Asian elephant calf, who was born alive yesterday after he was believed to have died in his mother's womb two days ago, is doing well, Taronga Zoo says.

The calf, who was monitored by the zoo's keepers throughout the night, has started to suckle from his mother, Porntip, without help and is moving around, said Mark Williams, the zoo's media relations manager.

"Both he and his mother are well and will be staying in the warm barn today," Mr Williams said in a statement.

"The other elephants, including the zoo's other calf, eight-month old Luk Chai, will be in the exhibit today with access to the barn so they can spend as much time as they wish with the pair".

Mr Williams said the newborn's red eyes were normal for calves, and Luk Chai, the zoo’s first calf, also had a similar feature when it was born eight months ago.

"It settles in a few days ... the camera probably made the eyes look more red".

The 90 to 100-kilogram baby was born at 3.27am yesterday, shocking both zookeepers and the public.

"The looks of disbelief on our faces were quite a picture. We couldn't believe that this could be true," said elephant manager Gary Miller yesterday.

On Monday, the zoo's senior veterinarian Larry Vogelnest said the calf was dead after one week of labour. Berlin-based elephant reproduction expert Thomas Hildebrandt, said then that "should the calf be born alive, it would be a miracle".

Zoo director Cameron Kerr said yesterday that Porntip's baby "still has a long way to go".

"While this is incredible news, the young calf still has a long way to go. Our vets are now working to determine the possible effects of the protracted labour on the calf.

“There are no guarantees of its long-term survival at this early stage but we hope that its birth against the odds will stand it in good stead”.

- with Deborah Smith

The Sydney Morning Herald

Ghetto Laborers Still Waiting for German Pensions

By Christoph Schult

Germany approved the requisite legislation back in 2002, but many of those who worked in Jewish ghettos during World War II are still waiting for their pensions. Indeed, up to 90 percent of applicants have been rejected. Now, though, a new reading of the law could break the logjam, and cost Berlin up to 2 billion euros.

Abraham Leibenson, born in 1925, was a construction worker from the Lithuanian city of Radviliskis who was imprisoned in the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps during World War II. His entire family perished in the Holocaust. Leibenson later moved to the Israeli city of Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. He suffered from heart trouble and had very little money.

In the summer of 2002, Leibenson heard about a new law that had been passed by the German parliament. It promised a modest pension to Jews who had worked a regular job in the Nazi ghettos. Leibenson had been employed in a number of positions in the ghetto of the city of Siauliai, working in agriculture, railway construction and at a nearby airfield.

He submitted an application to the appropriate authority, the regional German state pension agency in Düsseldorf -- and received a rejection notice. He filed a complaint with the Social Court in Düsseldorf -- and lost. He appealed to the State Social Court in Essen -- and lost again. Finally, he lodged an appeal with the Federal Social Court in Kassel. That was last year.

On Feb. 18, 2010, Abraham Leibenson died at the age of 84 without receiving a cent from the German state pension scheme. "He was extremely disappointed," says his widow, Ettel Leibenson, "but that's probably their policy -- to wait long enough for them all to die, so it costs as little as possible".

Over 90 Percent Denied

Germany's so-called Ghetto Pension Law (ZRBG) was designed as an unbureaucratic and swift measure to close a gap in the country's Nazi-era compensation -- at least that's what proponents of the bill intended in 2002. But the opposite has occurred. State pension agencies have denied over 90 percent of the roughly 70,000 applications submitted to date. "Every day 30 to 35 survivors die," an Israeli government delegation told representatives of the German Ministry of Social Affairs last Wednesday. Nearly half of the applicants live in Israel.

Government insurance bureaucrats and judges in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are largely to blame for the high rejection rates. They have been assigned the cases of claimants living in Israel. When in doubt, they interpret the law in a way detrimental to the survivors. Even though the law refers to "remuneration" rather than salary, applicants have been rejected if, for example, they received food stamps for their work. Officials have also cast doubt on whether they worked "of their own free will," as it is formulated in the law. Many applicants have been erroneously classified as forced laborers, although lawmakers in Berlin very deliberately separated the current legislation from forced laborer compensation.

Historians were rarely consulted at the outset. State pension officials and judges preferred to rely on superficial reference works, like the Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, as a basis for their decisions. In many cases, they even maintained that there had been no ghetto in the city in question. They often relied on a database maintained by the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum, located in the western German town of Hagen. The museum documents just 400 ghettos in Eastern Europe -- but the Russian historian Ilya Altman has counted 800 ghettos in just the region encompassing the former Soviet Union.

The rulings reached by the retirement insurance authorities and the judges are "in most cases poorly substantiated or totally unsubstantiated," Stephan Lehnstaedt, of the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, wrote in a report. They "demonstrate the lack of a qualified approach to scientific literature and historical sources, even an appalling ignorance at times".

Part 2: Inappropriate Questioning

Since most of the applicants are elderly and living outside Germany, their life stories were initially checked using only questionnaires. Judge Jan-Robert von Renesse, 43, from the state social court in Essen, felt that this type of questioning was inappropriate, and he traveled to Israel to meet personally with the survivors. This was the first time that a German judge had conducted official business on Israeli territory. Afterwards, many claimants won their cases.

A number of von Renesse's colleagues felt offended that doubt was cast on their previous work. But Kristin Platt, a German sociologist who was appointed as a court expert at von Renesse's request, went on record as saying that questionnaires are an "unsuitable tool for clarification of facts." Judge von Renesse was prohibited by his superiors from making such requests in the future.

Von Renesse also asked Wolfgang Benz, the head of the Berlin-based Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, to advise him on the analysis of testimony provided by ghetto survivors. The Holocaust expert noted that the court rejection of pensions had already attracted attention in the right-wing scene. Neo-Nazis had praised German judges for having exposed Jewish Holocaust survivors as "liars".

The judge commissioned a large number of historians to pore through archives in Eastern Europe and research the living conditions in specific ghettos. Retirement insurance officials as well as judges erroneously acted on the assumption that the history of Germany's persecution of the Jews had been sufficiently researched, wrote the Hamburg-based history professor Frank Golczewski. "Just as DNA analysis has recently made it possible to clear up previously unsolvable cases in criminology, the tapping of new historical sources allows for verdicts diverging from earlier judgements".

Parsimonious Berlin

In June 2009, a series of hearings and expert reports prompted the German Federal Social Court to reject the established case law in this area. It found that payment in the form of food stamps or food should be accepted as meeting the law's "remuneration" standard. The judges said that a strict application of German pension law did not accurately reflect the actual living conditions in the ghettos.

But what does that mean for those applicants who were rejected prior to that finding? In August, the North Rhine-Westphalia Labor Ministry asked the state body which oversees pensions to look into the question. Eight months after the ruling, an answer has still not been found.

Part of the reason that this major chapter in Germany's Holocaust compensation efforts still hasn't been brought to a close can be pinned on the parsimonious ways of Germany's federal government. Two and a half years ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a half-hearted attempt to solve the problem. She proposed that every ghetto survivor receive a one-time symbolic payment of €2,000 -- a plan which would have cost the German government €75 million. "They must have forgotten a zero," commented an adviser to the Israeli prime minister dryly. Indeed, some of those with a right to a pension can expect up to €80,000.

In addition, despite her stated friendship with Israel, Merkel was reluctant to become involved in the process out of fear of violating judicial independence. After the court reversed direction, however, she told the Finance Ministry to withdraw its budgetary concerns. Last week, Israeli government representatives were told by both Finance Ministry officials and German pension scheme executives that Berlin faced an exceedingly tight budget. But they were also told that an agreement was near.

At Gunpoint

Next Thursday, the German government and the pension administration plan to finally decide how they will implement the ruling. Survivors will reportedly be offered a four-year retroactive pension payment. According to internal calculations, this will cost Germany's pension administration an estimated €500 million ($680 million). A plan proposed by various judges two years ago would not have been much more expensive, but was rejected at the time.

Still, the conflict is by no means over. Those who submitted their application by the June 30, 2003 deadline are retroactively entitled by law to a pension dating back to 1997. This could cost the state up to €2 billion.

Many of the victims' legal representatives will advise their clients to accept the four-year payment and then sue for the full amount. "This is not about a goodwill gesture," says Simona Reppenhagen, an attorney for the victims. "The survivors worked hard for their pensions".

Sure enough, millions of Reichsmarks flowed into German state pension funds during World War II. Nazi officials also had no qualms about personally collecting pension contributions -- often at gunpoint.

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

Spiegel Internacional

Prince Khaled honored for contribution to art

By MD RASOOLDEEN | ARAB NEWS

RIYADH: Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal received on Tuesday the National Order of the Montenegrin Grand Star in recognition of his longstanding contribution to furthering cultural, artistic and educational understanding between Europe and Saudi Arabia.

The medal was presented by the President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanovic, at a function held at the King Faisal Palace in Riyadh.

The ceremony was attended by Chairman of the Board of Directors of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies  Prince Turki Al-Faisal; Montenegro Culture, Sports and Media Minister Branislave Micunovic; Director of the King Faisal Foundation, Prince Bandar Al-Saud; Chairman of Painting & Patronage, Anthony Bailey; and King Faisal International Prize winners who came to receive their awards at Tuesday’s King Faisal International Prize

ceremony.

Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, a renowned artist, displayed his first exhibition of oil paintings and gouaches in 1985 at Al-Khozama Center in Riyadh.

“The award is being given to Prince Khaled for his outstanding contribution to art, culture and education,” said Vujanovic, adding that he hopes this will herald new relations with the Kingdom.

Accepting the award, Prince Khaled said he was honored to receive the award from Montenegro’s president himself. “Art and culture creates relationships between humans,” he said.

The award comes under the Painting and Patronage Program established by Prince Khaled under the patronage of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.

Formed in 1999, with its founding Chairman Bailey, the organization funds exchange programs and organizes artistic summer schools and outreach programs as well as exhibitions for Saudi and European artists. Previous programs have taken place in several countries including the UK and Portugal.

“This is yet another illustration of the high regard of the lifetime achievements of Prince Khaled Al-Faisal,” said Bailey. “Painting and Patronage Program looks forward to engaging with its artistic community in the years to come,” he said.

After the awards ceremony, Vujanovic and other dignitaries were given a tour of Alfaisal University, which is located in the grounds of King Faisal Palace. The visiting president and his delegation met with Alfaisal University officials Ronald Bulbulian, acting provost, Ala Al-Bakri, vice president for accreditation and quality assurance, and Princess Maha bint Mishari, executive director for external affairs.

Arab News