Germany to begin compensating wartime slave laborers now living in Ukraine (08/27/00)

Germany to begin compensating wartime slave laborers now living in Ukraine

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Germany's Ambassador to Ukraine Eberhardt Heiken said on August 21 that Germany has prepared the procedure by which World War II slave laborers and concentration camp workers will receive compensation. Claims will be accepted beginning immediately until April 11, 2001.

On August 12, the German Parliament approved a bill authorizing the disbursement of funds, which clears the way for "osterbeiters," people from Eastern Europe who were forcible moved by the Nazis during World War II from their homelands to Germany to work, to receive about $5 billion in redress.

Ukrainians who can conclusively prove that they had been German slave laborers will share in a pool of $862 million. Ukraine has been allocated the third highest amount after Poland and the Jewish Claims Conference, which were allocated $906 million each.

Approximately 660,000 Ukrainians could qualify for such compensation, but for the majority of them what they will receive remains uncertain because they were agricultural workers, a category for which compensation is yet to be clearly specified.

Germany stiffly resisted compensation for this class of slave laborer during the year-long negotiations that led to the compensation agreement under the presumption that the lives of farm workers were better and they suffered less than those who worked in labor camps, factories and wartime ghettos. Agricultural laborers were only included after the Ukrainian and Polish delegations insisted that their claims also must be redressed.

The amount of financial redress for those who toiled on farms was not specifically identified in the final agreement. The farm laborers will share in a pool that national organizations overseeing the disbursement will develop. The national organizations, in the case of Ukraine the Ukrainian National Fund on Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation, will reduce the amount of compensation for the other classes of workers to accommodate farm workers. Currently it is expected that each agricultural worker will be eligible for $500, whereas each concentration camp or ghetto inhabitant will receive about $7,500 and each factory worker $2,500. Mr. Heiken said the final figures will depend on the number of claims that are filed by next spring.

"The base sum remains the same. If agricultural workers receive compensation, the individual amounts will be reduced to include them, which is understood by all," explained Mr. Heiken.

Although some have suggested that such a plan ostensibly could cause tensions to rise among the groups, Mr. Heiken stressed that the effort by Germany was not intended to fully redress that which the slave laborers endured and that people must understand this.

"I hope that there will not be any conflict in Ukrainian society as a result of the law," said Mr. Heiken.

Today it is estimated that of the 660,000 eligible Ukrainians still alive, 14,488 are former concentration camp and ghetto internees, 278,821 were industrial laborers, and 303,245 were agricultural workers.

Ambassador Heiken said that disbursement would take place in two tranches. "Today we do not know how many people will submit claims. We only will know after eight months," said Mr. Heiken. "To avoid a situation in which money may not be left for those filing later, we decided to disburse the funds in two tranches."

The German ambassador said he did not yet know the date the disbursement will begin but that it will happen before next spring. He said the German government fully realizes that the survivors are dying off and will do all that is possible to begin the pay-outs as soon as possible.

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 have the needed documentation should turn either to the Ukrainian National Fund on Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has extensive lists of those who returned to Ukraine after the war, 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.

The National Fund on Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation also says that in some cases it will accept oral testimony from witnesses.

On March 28, the German government and various German corporations who benefited from wartime slave labor agreed to extend a total of 10 billion deutsche marks (about $5 billion U.S.) in compensation to those who worked in concentration camps and wartime ghettos, or worked in factories or on farms. Individuals who spent time in German prisoner-of-war camps as captured soldiers are not eligible.

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