Your article “Restoration of German Citizenship for Holocaust Victims and Descendants” (NYLJ, Sept. 23) was interesting and basically accurate. A fairly significant omission is that, until April 1, 1953, German citizenship could only be passed down through the father. If you were born before this time of a mother who had her German citizenship taken from her, unfortunately your claim will fail. I know from experience that citizenship restoration is not an especially onerous process, that supporting documents are fairly easy to find and that the German authorities are generally very helpful.
Apart from gaining an EU passport, for me, citizenship restoration brought with it an added bonus: while researching my extended family’s cases, I have learnt much about my mother’s and grandparent’s lives in Germany and the circumstances of their escape. In the UK, since the Brexit referendum, there has been marked increase in requests for the restoration of German citizenship and I was told by a consular official that UK-based cases are now being fast-tracked. What used to take quite a few months (though almost always less than a year) can now take a matter of weeks.
Oliver Marshall
London, England