Two unnamed European men have become the first gays to receive aid from the Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust, according to the Washington Blade and Swiss gay activists.

The fund -- which targets Nazi victims who never received Holocaust compensation or otherwise have suffered ongoing hardship -- was created after the Swiss government and Swiss banks were accused of storing gold stolen by the Nazis, failing to disclose the location of the gold after the war, and denying Holocaust survivors and their descendants access to dormant accounts.

The two men, one of whom lives in France and the other in Poland received about $1,330 each from a pot of $195 million that is awaiting distribution.

The French man was held in a concentration camp for six months at age 18 then forced into the German army. The Polish man was jailed at age 17 for violating Nazi Germany's sodomy law and remained jailed until the end of the war.

BRAZILIAN MAN WINS ESTATE CASE

Brazil's Superior Tribunal of Justice ruled February 11 that businessman Milton Alves Pedrosa is entitled to half the estate of his deceased partner, Jair Batista Prearo.

In an ongoing battle with his lover's parents, Alves Pedrosa won at a lower court then lost at the appeals level before winning this final ruling.

"A judge nowadays cannot deny that two people of the same sex can form family ties," Judge Ruy Rosado stated. "Their sexual behavior may go against moral standards, but the civil union between them is legitimate."

The couple lived in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais.

Brazilian Congresswoman Marta Suplicy has introduced legislation to recognize gay civil unions. The measure will be considered by the Chamber of Deputies this year.

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com.

The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.