A Jewish woman from Latvia, who spent part of the Second World War in a Nazi German labour camp, has become the first recipient of a payment from a Swiss compensation fund.

The woman - 75-year-old Riva Sefere - will receive $400 at a ceremony in ten days' time.

The money comes from a fund totalling $200 million, set up this year following criticism that Swiss banks had profited from the bank accounts of Holocaust victims.

An official of an American Jewish distribution committee said tens of thousands of eastern European Jews would eventually receive payments from the fund.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
 

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