BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s Parliament on Thursday approved a measure extending pension payments totaling nearly a half-billion dollars for thousands of elderly Jews who were forced to work for the Nazis in ghettos.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which helped negotiate the deal with the German government, said the agreement means some 40,000 Holocaust survivors, used by the Nazis in ghettos as laborers in exchange for food or meager wages, will receive additional benefits.