Ukraine's negotiating team hails forced-slave labor settlement (04/02/00)

Ukraine's negotiating team hails forced-slave labor settlement

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The delegation that represented Ukraine in negotiations on compensation for forced and slave laborers expressed satisfaction with the results at a press conference on March 28, after their return from Berlin. But some of the members said they would work to have some adjustments made to the agreement before it is approved by Germany's Parliament.

"This is a significant accomplishment," said Oleksander Maidannyk, first vice minister of foreign affairs, who headed the Ukrainian negotiating team.

After nearly a year and more than a dozen separate sessions held in the United States and Germany, the German government and various German corporations that utilized slave laborers from Eastern and Central Europe to fuel the Nazi war machine agreed on March 28 to extend a total of 10 billion Deutsche marks, or $5 billion (U.S.) in compensation for suffering to those who worked in concentration camps and wartime ghettos, or worked in factories or on farms.

Ukrainians who can conclusively prove that they had been German slave laborers will share in a pool of $862 million. Ukraine will receive the third largest amount after Poland and the Jewish Claims Conference, which will be allotted $906 million each. Russia was awarded $417.5 million to disseminate to its surviving German slave laborers, while Belarus and the Czech Republic received slightly lesser sums.

Another $500 million will be used to cover insurance, capital and bank claims of survivors, with additional monies allocated for a reserve fund to be utilized to compensate any victims not identified in the current agreement.

It is estimated that more than 2 million Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes to work as ostarbeiters for the Nazis during World War II. Today it is estimated that about 610,000 are still alive: 14,488 of whom are former concentration camp and ghetto internees, 278,821 industrial laborers and 303,245 agricultural laborers.

The final figures on the amount of compensation were tallied after the sides agreed that each concentration camp inhabitant should receive $7,500, while industrial laborers would get $2,500. Agricultural laborers will be eligible for up to $500, which will come out of national funds that are to be developed.

The German side had offered the most resistance to providing compensation for agricultural laborers, claiming that in most cases those who worked on farms had comfortable living arrangements and adequate food, which disqualified them from hardship compensation.

The Ukrainian delegation adamantly insisted on the right for farm workers to compensation, explained Danylo Kourdelchouk, the head lawyer for the Ukrainian delegation, because the largest portion of Ukrainian slave laborers was forced to work on farms. After extensive negotiations the German side backed down.

"We should be thankful that the agricultural category even exists, said Mr. Kourdelchouk.

Ukrainians who ended up living in foreign lands after the war are also eligible for compensation if they can prove that they belong to one of the categories affected.

Myroslav Smorodsky, an attorney from New Jersey, will represent the interests of Ukrainians living abroad, said Mr. Kourdelchouk.

Members of the Ukrainian delegation, which included Messrs. Maidannyk, Kourdelchouk and Smorodsky, as well as National Deputy Ihor Sharov, who is the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on International Relations in Defense of Victims of Nazism, and Ihor Lushnykov, head of the Ukrainian National Fund on Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation, said they believe some changes should still be made to the agreement, which is now a draft bill that must still be ratified by the German Parliament.

First, they believe the stipulation that in cases where slave laborers are deceased, only spouses and children of slave laborers who died after February 16, 1999, can receive compensation should be amended. Mr. Kourdelchouk said that the notion of allowing compensation only to children and spouses is discriminatory, although he did not explain why, and simply limits the financial burden of the German side.

Another problem is the way in which the payments will be distributed. Mr. Kourdelchouk said those who qualify should get their compensation in a single lump sum. "Many of the people are old and may not live to see the balance they will be owed," said the attorney.

The current agreement provides for a 50 percent disbursement of the total allotted to each concentration camp or ghetto inhabitant and 35 percent to industrial workers at the time the agreement comes into effect and the balance at a later, as yet unspecified date.

The compensation plan is expected to receive a first reading in the German Bundestag in the first half of April, followed by a second reading and final passage sometime in June. Members of the Ukrainian delegation said they hope the bill would become effective in early autumn.

To qualify for compensation, Ukrainians who spent time in the Nazi concentration camps or ghettos or worked as industrial or agricultural slave labor must show documentation proving their status. Those who do not should turn to Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has extensive lists of those who returned to Ukraine after the war, to the International Red Cross, or to the local German cities and villages where the slave laborers worked, some of which have retained registration lists of wartime workers.

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