[Is Clinton making more phony promises? Or is there something
tricky afoot that I'm missing?]
July 18, 2000
Germans Sign Agreement to Pay Forced Laborers of Nazi Era
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
ERLIN, July 17 -- It has been 55 years since Karel Horak was
forced to work at Czech factories seized by Hitler's forces.
Today, as he watched with the patience acquired over a long life,
the United States and Germany approved a $5 billion agreement to
compensate forced laborers like him from the Nazi era. "I just
hope they can move quickly," Mr. Horak said, "because I am
already 80 years old. People around me are dying very rapidly."
Mr. Horak, who is vice president of an association in Prague of
former forced workers, said, "We had 640,000 forced laborers at
the end of the war, and now there are only 61,000."
Today, after a half-century of denial and two years of grueling
negotiations, German government and industry leaders formally
signed an agreement that is intended to bring at least legal
closure to the last remaining claims arising from atrocities of
the Nazi regime.
Under the agreement, the German government and German companies
will contribute equally to a $5 billion fund to compensate former
laborers, possibly more than a million of them, who were slave
workers in concentration camps or forced laborers in German
factories.
Former slave workers are entitled to payments of about $7,500.
Former forced laborers are entitled to about $2,500.
Other victims, such as people who had their property seized or
who were victims of Nazi medical experiments, will also be able
to file for compensation.
** In exchange for the agreement, President Clinton has pledged
** that the United States will do everything it can to block new
** class-action lawsuits brought in the United States against
** German corporations.
It is a historic bargain, because it is intended to compensate
Nazi-era victims in more than 20 countries, from Poland and
Ukraine to Russia and Israel.
Only a small minority of the people have ever set foot in the
United States, but the United States assumed the lead negotiating
role with Germany because American class-action lawyers had filed
lawsuits on behalf of victims from around the world against
German companies like DaimlerChrysler, Siemens and Deutsche Bank.
There are still a few snags, including the fact that German
companies have raised only half the amount they have pledged. But
people on all sides of the talks predicted today that the money
is not in serious doubt. With any luck, they said, survivors
would start receiving payments sometime this year.
"This fills a void that has existed for 55 years," said Stuart E.
Eizenstat, the United States deputy secretary of Treasury, who
led negotiations for the American government. "This had never
been dealt with. It had fallen off the agenda."
Lawyers who brought the cases will earn a large amount, about $50
million, but that is just 1 percent of the total, Mr. Eizenstat
said.
Germany has paid nearly $100 billion in various forms of
compensation and support to Jewish groups, the state of Israel
and to Central European countries that the Germans invaded during
World War II.
But surviving forced laborers received little or nothing, largely
because German corporations insisted that the government was
responsible. And former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who controlled
the government from 1982 to 1998, adamantly refused to contribute
any public money to the workers.
But two things abruptly changed the picture. The first was the
successful use of American class-action lawsuits against Swiss
banks, which had been accused of hoarding wealth in dormant
accounts set up by Holocaust victims. The suits never went to
trial and the Swiss banks agreed to settle out of court with
promises to pay $1.25 billion. The Swiss case quickly prompted
American lawyers to take aim at German corporations, particularly
on the issue of forced labor. Though none of the cases have
succeeded in court, and two were rejected by federal courts, the
threat of prolonged litigation and nightmarish publicity was
terrifying to companies like DaimlerChrysler and Deutsche Bank
which do vast amounts of business in the United States.
The other big change was Gerhard Schroeder's election as
chancellor in late 1998. Almost immediately, Mr. Schroeder
announced his desire to create a foundation that would compensate
victims and that would be funded in part with government money.
"Without the government's willingness to contribute, we could
never have gotten up to the minimum level we needed," Mr.
Eizenstat said in an interview today. "The fact that the
government came in at a time when it was cutting its own budget
is remarkable."
Mr. Schroeder, presiding over the signing ceremonies, seemed
mainly relieved that the negotiations were finally over. When
German businesses first proposed a settlement 2 years ago, they
offered 1.5 billion marks, or about $750 million at current
exchange rates. Attorneys representing survivors, by contrast,
were making demands as high as $30 billion.
While Mr. Eizenstat led negotiations with Count Otto Lambsdorff,
who represented German industry, many Central European leaders
felt they had been relegated to the sidelines.
"We were invited to be guests, to be observers, but not to be
direct participants," complained Jerzy Kranz, head of the Polish
delegation to the talks.
Mr. Eizenstat vehemently denied excluding Central European
leaders from the key discussions, and he noted that most of the
money will go to survivors in Central Europe. And despite the
somewhat injured feelings, representatives from Poland, the Czech
Republic, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine all supported the final
agreements today.
Noach Flug, a former slave worker in Poland who now represents
the International Auschwitz Committee in Jerusalem, said the
final agreement was far better for all of the victims' groups
than what German corporations or the German government originally
proposed.
"The final agreement is completely different," Mr. Flug said. "It
is 50 years late and 80 percent of the people have already died,
but it is at least something."
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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