Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY - Making 'Gold Train' Cut for Survivors

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY - Holocaust survivor Miriam Kleinman says that she can still remember the diamond earrings her sister wore in Hungary. But the glittering stones were stolen by Hungary's Nazi regime and her older sibling was killed at Auschwitz, a place Kleinman survived.
Six decades later, the 78-year-old Williamsburg widow is getting a token for those earrings. "I wish they could give me my family back," said Kleinman.

Four groups have begun distributing $550,000 a year for five years to more than 6,000 city survivors of Hungarian Nazi atrocities - 4,000 live in Brooklyn.
The money is part of a $25.5 million settlement paid by the U.S. government, with the help of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens), who worked on the Hungarian Gold Train case in which U.S. forces intercepted a train in 1945 with 24 freight cars of gold, jewelry, art, china and Oriental rugs - worth an estimated $200million, many were stolen by American soldiers.
"It's wrong that for so many years our government did not want to recognize their obligations," said Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg.

A settlement in the class-action suit against the government was approved last fall - and the government apologized to the victims.