The demonstrators were made up mostly of young people, many of them descendants of survivors [AFP]

The survivors, along with a much larger crowd of younger people, rallied in front of government offices in Jerusalem on Sunday to dispute the government's proposed payment to survivors of $20 a month.
 
Yosef Charnyi, 82-years old and a survivor of the second world war's Treblinka death camp, said: "We are demanding the right to finish our days decently."
 
According to Haaretz newspaper, there were "thousands" of protesters on Sunday's march.
 
Last week, the government announced plans to pay grants worth $29m to about 120,000 "survivors" over 70 living in Israel, starting in 2008.
 
But the announcement drew criticism, with one survivors organisation calling it an "insulting gesture".
 
The plan has also been criticised as the payments would be increased year on year, while the number of survivors would be likely to dwindle as time went on.
 
But in the build up to Sunday's protest, much of the focus was on what the protesters would be wearing.
 
Powerful symbols

Many were concerned about what the protesters would wear [AFP]

Reports had suggested that the protesters would wear "prisoners' clothes and yellow patches", a reference to the death camp uniforms.
 
Speaking on Israel Radio, Isaac Herzog, the Israeli welfare minister, said such a gesture "in the name of a financial dispute with the government, is an insult to the collective memory of the Holocaust".
 
Survivors and government officials alike argued that those symbols should not be used for political purposes and few of the protesters wore them on Sunday.
 
The demonstrators were made up mostly of young people, many of them descendents of survivors, with only a handful of first generation survivors marching.

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