re: What?
It's not quite so simple as "my ancestors were wronged, so the government owes me." It's for Ottoman Turks who had bought life insurance from the New York Life Insurance Co., and who, after they were massacred during WWI, their families were not compensated by the company. Basically, New York Life figured they could get off by not paying people if they died during the war. The government disagreed in 2004, and so those families with members who were actual payees to the company and who were killed and never compensated, get to get some of that back.
Unlike so many tax breaks, this one comes from a settlement and sounds pretty reasonable to me. I think the judge in the case felt this was the easiest way to disburse the settlement money.