Russian/Nat A 74-year old Latvian Jew became the first recipient on Tuesday of money from a fund set up by Swiss banks. At a special ceremony in the capital Riga, 80 survivors of the Holocaust received cheques of up to four hundred dollars (US). The 200 million dollar (US) fund was provided by Swiss banks and industry in response to claims that they had profited from Adolf Hitler's war machine. But many of the recipients at Tuesday's ceremony said the small sums were merely symbolic. Behind the crumbling facade of Riga's Jewish Community Centre Riva Sefere, a 75-year-old Jewish survivor of a Nazi labour camp in Latvia, was the first of the 80 men and women to get a cheque from the Swiss fund. Sefere was living in a Jewish ghetto in Riga when she was imprisoned in a Nazi labour camp. The amounts are small - the biggest being about four hundreds dollars (US). The Latvian survivors are being paid in proportion to the low cost of living in most of Eastern Europe, although Riga itself is quite an expensive city. But several of the recipients said the payments were merely "symbolic". Some said they would use the money to cover their rent or to pay for proper medical care, previously unaffordable. SOUNDBITE: (Latvian) "I would like to say that this money for me is a symbol that the West has finally heard us because survivors in the West did not survive the war as we survived -- we perhaps have survived more because we had to live through two occupations." SUPERCAPTION: Riva Sefere, recipient of first cheque Soon, other destitute Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe will be receiving payments of up to one thousand dollars. The Latvians were the first to receive their payments however, because the number of survivors is small and logistically manageable. The arrangements for payments have been carried out by global and local Jewish organisations. SOUNDBITE: (English) "The feeling was after the war that it was very meaningful that the Swiss, for the Swiss, that they have done well because they could keep away from occupation and even to be Allies to the Germans." SUPERCAPTION: Dr. Rolf Bloch, president of Swiss Fund The Germans invaded Latvia in July, 1941. What followed the invasion was pure terror. Latvian families were uprooted and many were placed in labour camps -- from which most never returned. At first the Nazis created a ghetto. They later sealed it off and executed its occupants. The Swiss Fund members arriving in Riga for the ceremony say the money isn't meant to serve as compensation for all that the Latvian Jews have suffered -- they admit that no amount of money could do that. They call it a humanitarian gesture toward Jews in order to make amends for past mistakes. You can license this story through AP Archive: www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/83c1e06aba47d252dcf178ca9e9e8b68 Find out more about AP Archive: www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

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