CLEVELAND — Although his two siblings live here, Israeli citizen David Feig likely will never set foot in Cleveland. But within the next year, a federal court judge and jury here will make a decision that will affect how he lives and identifies himself.
Last month, David Feig, who lives in a nursing home in Rishon Lezion, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court here charging that his brother, Sam Feig of Beachwood, a Cleveland suburb, stole his identity in order to obtain war reparations from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The suit alleges that Sam Feig has illegally received in excess of $75,000 to date, and asks for $225,000 in restitution and compensatory damages.
Cleveland attorney Robert A. Goodman says his client, 75-year-old David Feig, is very ill from the aftereffects of a stroke and a laryngectomy. Goodman will travel to Israel soon to meet his client in person.
David was imprisoned in 1944 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he worked in an underground coal mine. He survived a January 1945 death march to Buchenwald, and remained there until the United States Army liberated him in April 1945.
When David’s claim for compensation was denied in 1996, he learned that his brother reportedly had posed as him for several decades in order to receive the monthly payments from the claims conference.
Sam, applying under the name of Sam David Feig, began receiving monthly payments from the claims conference in 1963, according to the lawsuit. To receive the money, he allegedly used his brother’s name, date of birth, record of incarceration and concentration-camp number. He continues to receive those monthly payments today.
Sam, who was not at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was in the Hungarian army forced-labor battalion.
The brothers have not had much contact in recent years, according to attorney Goodman, although David’s family has contacted Sam over the last several months requesting that he return the money.
Goodman compares the situation to the biblical story of twin brothers Jacob and Esau, where the younger Jacob steals his brother’s birthright by posing as Esau to his father, Isaac.
“It is really a question of someone taking someone else’s identity,” says Goodman.
At first, the identity was freely given. According to the lawsuit, Sam and David were reunited in 1946 in a displaced persons camp in Germany. Shortly thereafter, David immigrated to Israel. He left Sam and his wife, Helen, his ration card to help them obtain more food. The card contained all of David Feig’s personal information, including the number tattooed on his arm, A-1736.
While many who have heard about the case have condemned one brother over the other, social worker Miriam Katz takes a broader view.
“It is understandable how these things could have happened,” says Katz, who runs the Holocaust Survivor Program at Jewish Family Services Association in Cleveland. The program, funded by a grant from the claims conference, offers counseling and other services, and helps survivors file claims for compensation.
Because of Sam’s forced-labor service, she says, he is likely eligible for some reparations, but probably not as much as would be paid to camp survivors.
“Reparations are not just money,” says Katz. “It validates their [Holocaust] experience. It lends credibility. It’s an acknowledgment of their suffering.”
Many survivors take it personally when their claims are denied or when a deadline passes and they fail to apply in time, says Katz. That is especially the case if a sibling does receive the reparations or makes the deadline. Often, a survivor does not even tell his or her siblings about the claims.
“In the Holocaust people are looking out for themselves,” Katz says. “And 50 years later, they still are. There is an element of selfishness and self-preservation…and 50 years later, it is still there.
“For many people,” she adds, “the lack of trust can carry over to their own families.”
David has suffered extreme mental anguish resulting from his experiences during the Holocaust, and the current situation has caused him to suffer even more, says his attorney. “To have survived all that and to be deprived of that money, and by your sibling who you tried to help, is devastating,” Goodman says.
Noted Holocaust author Eli Wiesel is a cousin of the brothers, and was interned in the camps with David. Wiesel may testify on David’s behalf during the federal trial, says Goodman.
Sam Feig, whose longtime attorney David L. Levine said he could not comment on pending litigation, switched attorneys late last month.