Polish gypsies are to ask the German government for compensation for the suffering inflicted on them during the World War II, the Polish news agency PAP reported on Monday.

It quoted the head of the Roma Association in Poland (SRP), Roman Kwiatkowski, as saying that his organization was seeking compensation on behalf of those Polish gypsies "who suffered because of the racial discrimination of the Third Reich" .

The SRP says that about 2,000 of Poland's 30,000 gypsies are entitled to receive pensions as compensation for the crimes committed against them during the war.

The organization handed over a list of 137 gypsy victims of the Holocaust to the German ambassador to Poland, PAP said.

The agency quoted Kwiatkowski as saying that an agreement reached between the German government and the Jewish Claims Conference created "a great chance for the Polish Roma people" .

Other Polish organizations representing victims of the Nazis - such as the Office for War Veterans and Repressed Persons - have declared their support for the SRP's claims, PAP said.

It quoted the head of the Association of Jewish War Veterans and Wronged During World War II as saying that the Gypsies were covered by a foundation created by Swiss banks which intends to make 200 million dollars available to Holocaust victims in Central and Eastern Europe.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.