The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (German: Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft; acronym EVZ), is a German Federal organisation with the purpose of making financial compensation available "to former forced laborers and to those affected by other injustices from the National Socialist period". [1]
Throughout World War II about 8.4 million civilian forced laborers from all over Europe and 4.5 million prisoners of war were deployed as slave and forced laborers in Nazi concentration camps, labor camps or other places of detention for industrial, agricultural or public administrative purposes. [2]
The foundation was established in August 2000 following several years of national and international negotiations in which the German government was represented by Otto Graf Lambsdorff. The Foundation's capital of DEM 10.1 billion (EUR 5.2 billion) was provided in equal amounts by 6,500 German companies to the German Industry Foundation Initiative and the German Federal Government. [2] [3]
The compensation payments were made in cooperation with international partner organisations in the respective countries or representing international organisations. [4]
The Foundation is supervised by its Board of Trustees, comprising 27 members from various nations. Between 2001 and 2007 a total of EUR 4.4 billion was paid out to more than 1.66 million people in almost 100 countries. [2]
| Country | Partner Organisation | Number of recipients | total amount (million EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Belarus and Estonia | Belarusian Foundation Understanding and Reconciliation | Belarus: 120,000 Estonia: 9,000 | Belarus: 325 Estonia: 21 |
| Czech Republic | The German-Czech Future Fund | 76,000 | 210 |
| Poland | Foundation Polish-German Reconciliation | 484,000 | 979 |
| Russia Latvia, Lithuania and other former States of the Soviet Union | Russian Foundation Understanding and Reconciliation | Russia: 256,000 Latvia: 13,000 Lithuania: 12,000 other: 3,000 | Russia: 426 Latvia: 23 Lithuania: 18 other: 5 |
| Ukraine | Ukrainian National Foundation Understanding and Reconciliation | 471,000 | 867 |
| International | International Organisation for Migration (IOM) | 90,000 | 386 |
| International | Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany | 159,000 | 1,149 |
| total | 1,665,000 | 4,400 [3] |
The individual payments depended on different criteria such as
Inmates of a concentration camp, ghetto or those in similar conditions received a compensation of up to EUR 7,670.
Persons who were forcefully deported to Germany or German-occupied countries and lived in detention or similar conditions received a compensation of up to EUR 2,560. Persons who worked in agriculture received up to EUR 2,500. [5]
EUR 358 million of the Foundation's capital was allocated to a grant-giving foundation in order to provide project funding with an annual amount of EUR 8 million. This is primarily used to support international programmes and projects in
As of January 2008 the Foundation has spent EUR 34.3 million and has supported 1,300 projects worldwide since its foundation such as the "Train of Remembrance", a project to commemorate the role of the German railways in the Holocaust [6] and the Leo Baeck-programme to raise the "awareness of the intellectual and cultural heritage of German-language Judaism in schools and universities". [7]
Compensation to Germans used as forced labor after the war is not possible to claim in Germany, the possibility was removed by the statute of limitations since September 29, 1978. [8]
The Gulag was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps which were set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word gulag in reference to each of the forced-labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including the camps that existed in the post-Lenin era. The full official name of the agency changed several times.
Laogai, short for laodong gaizao (劳动改造), which means reform through labor, is a criminal justice system involving the use of penal labor and prison farms in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Láogǎi is different from láojiào, or re-education through labor, which was the abolished administrative detention system for people who were not criminals but had committed minor offenses, and was intended to "reform offenders into law-abiding citizens". Persons who were detained in the laojiao were detained in facilities that were separate from those which comprised the general prison system of the laogai. Both systems, however, were based on penal labor.
A labor camp or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons. Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, abolished camps of forced labor.
The German camps in occupied Poland during World War II were built by the Nazis between 1939 and 1945 throughout the territory of the Polish Republic, both in the areas annexed in 1939, and in the General Government formed by Nazi Germany in the central part of the country (see map). After the 1941 German attack on the Soviet Union, a much greater system of camps was established, including the world's only industrial extermination camps constructed specifically to carry out the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question".
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, represents the world's Jews in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. According to Section 2(1)(3) of the Property Law of Germany, the Claims Conference is a legal successor with respect to the claims not filed on time by Jewish persons. This fact was reasserted in decisions of some lawsuits which attempted to redefine the Claims Conference as a "trustee" of these assets. These lawsuits were dismissed. The Claims Conference administers compensation funds, recovers unclaimed Jewish property, and allocates funds to institutions that provide social welfare services to Holocaust survivors and preserve the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. Julius Berman has led the organization as chairman of the board, and currently president, as of 2020.
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation is a German political party foundation associated with, but independent from, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Established in 1925 as the political legacy of Friedrich Ebert, Germany's first democratically elected President, it is the largest and oldest of the German party-associated foundations. It is headquartered in Bonn and Berlin, and has offices and projects in over 100 countries. It is Germany's oldest organisation to promote democracy, political education, and promote students of outstanding intellectual abilities and personality.
Hinzert concentration camp was a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate, 30 kilometres (19 mi) from the border with Luxembourg. Between 1939 and 1945, 13,600 political prisoners between the ages of 13 and 80 were imprisoned at Hinzert. Many were in transit towards larger concentration camps where most would be killed. However, many prisoners were executed at Hinzert. The camp was administered, run, and guarded mainly by the SS, who, according to survivors, were notorious for their brutality and viciousness.
Kraków District was one of the original four administrative districts set up by Nazi Germany after the German occupation of Poland during the years of 1939–1945. This district, along with the other three districts, formed the General Government. It was established on October 12, 1939 by Adolf Hitler, with the capital in occupied Kraków – the historic residence of Polish royalty. The Nazi Gauleiter Hans Frank became the Governor-General of the entire territory of the General Government. He made his residence in Kraków at the heavily guarded Wawel castle. Frank was the former legal counsel to the Nazi Party.
Ostarbeiter was a Nazi German designation for foreign slave workers gathered from occupied Central and Eastern Europe to perform forced labor in Germany during World War II. The Germans started deporting civilians at the beginning of the war and began doing so at unprecedented levels following Operation Barbarossa in 1941. They apprehended Ostarbeiter from the newly-formed German districts of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, District of Galicia, and Reichskommissariat Ostland. These areas comprised German-occupied Poland and the conquered territories of the Soviet Union. According to Pavel Polian, over 50% of Ostarbeiters were formerly Soviet subjects originating from the territory of modern-day Ukraine, followed by Polish women workers. Eastern workers included ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Russians, Armenians, Tatars, and others. Estimates of the number of Ostarbeiter range between 3 million and 5.5 million.
The use of slave and forced labour in Nazi Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in occupied Europe. The Germans abducted approximately 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds came from Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Many workers died as a result of their living conditions – extreme mistreatment, severe malnutrition, and worse tortures were the main causes of death. Many more became civilian casualties from enemy (Allied) bombing and shelling of their workplaces throughout the war. At its peak the forced labourers constituted 20% of the German work force. Counting deaths and turnover, about 15 million men and women were forced labourers at one point during the war.
The European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) was founded in 2002. Its objective is to provide assistance to European Union member states when large-scale disasters occur. Catastrophes are considered to be large-scale if the estimated direct cost of damage exceeds 3 billion euro or 0.6% of gross national income of the country concerned. Since its inception, the Fund has provided assistance to member states as a result of 56 disasters including earthquakes, forest fires, drought, storms and floods. According to a European Commission report, Italy and Germany have been the leading beneficiaries of these emergency funds, though in total 23 states have received support.
The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation is a major German philanthropic foundation, created by and named in honor of Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, former owner and head of the Krupp company and a convicted war criminal.
In the years following World War II, large numbers of German civilians and captured soldiers were forced into labor by the Allied forces. The topic of using Germans as forced labor for reparations was first broached at the Tehran conference in 1943, where Soviet premier Joseph Stalin demanded 4,000,000 German workers.
Rudy Kennedy was a British rocket scientist, Holocaust survivor, and a protester for Jewish causes. He spent a substantial period of his youth in Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz, Mittelbau-Dora, and Bergen-Belsen. After liberation, he worked as a rocket scientist and led the campaign for compensation for the survivors of the German policy of "extermination through labour".
Thomas Lutz is the head of the Memorial Museums Department of the Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin, and active in Holocaust education and research at the national (German) and international level.
Kinder der Landstrasse was a project implemented by the Swiss foundation Pro Juventute from 1926 to 1973. The project aimed to assimilate the itinerant Yenish people in Switzerland by forcibly removing their children from their parents and placing them in orphanages or foster homes. Approximately 590 children were affected by this program.
Durchgangsstrasse IV was a road constructed by Nazi Germany in occupied Ukraine during World War II. It was a strategic military road to supply the southern sector of the Eastern Front. The large scale constructions works started in early 1942 to support the German advance towards Stalingrad. It ran for over 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) from Lviv east to Stalino. Organisation Todt was responsible for the construction which was sub-contracted to several private construction firms. It was constructed by forced laborers – Soviet prisoners of war, local civilians, and Jews – who were procured by the SS and guarded by the Schutzmannschaft battalions. One of the largest forced labor projects undertaken by Nazi Germany that involved Jewish labor, it marked a transition between using Jews as forced laborers to the practice of "extermination through labour".
Private sector participation in Nazi crimes was extensive and included widespread use of forced labor in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe, confiscation of property from Jews and other victims by banks and insurance companies, and the transportation of people to Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps by rail. After the war, companies sought to downplay their participation in crimes and claimed that they were also victims of Nazi totalitarianism. However, the role of the private sector in Nazi Germany has been described as an example of state-corporate crime.
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