Faina Kukliansky, the leader of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, is considering postponement of the application deadline, as some people learned about the opportunity to get compensation too late, Lietuvos Žinios daily reports.
"We have received about 1,000 applications, however, they keep coming so it's hard to tell the total number. We may even have to extend the application deadline, as some people, especially living far away, found out about the application opportunity too late. We are currently publishing information in the media in Australia, Canada, and other countries," the daily cited Kukliansky as saying.
Under the law on compensation for property of Jewish religious communities adopted in 2011, 128 million litas (EUR 37.1m) in compensation for the property nationalized by totalitarian regimes will be paid out to Jews in the coming decade.
Last year, the Lithuanian government appointed a fund for distributing the money and transferred the initial 3 million litas. The application deadline has been set for mid-2013, with the money to be paid out in the second half of this year.
About 90 percent of Lithuania's pre-war Jewish population of about 208,000 perished during the Nazi Germany rule in 1941-1944.
