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Nazi-slave labor fund bill passed |
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July 7, 2000
BERLIN (AP) - Parliament passed a bill Thursday setting up a 10 billion mark (dlrs 5 billion) fund for Nazi-era slave and forced laborers, clearing the way for payments to the aging victims to begin this year after some 18 months of negotiations. In a separate resolution, lawmakers also formally apologized to victims "for that, which Germans did to them," namely "the taking away of their rights, displacement, maltreatment and exploitation. ... "With the law, an historic and moral duty is redeemed in the form of a long overdue humanitarian and financial gesture," the resolution read. The vote on the compensation fund bill was 556-42, with 22 abstentions. Those voting against had complained largely that the agreement sealed last month with the U.S. and eastern European governments and Jewish groups did not provide solid-enough protection for German firms against class-action lawsuits filed by victims in U.S. courts. The German government's envoy to the talks, Otto Lambsdorff, rejected such charges in debate before the vote and sharply criticized firms that have not yet contributed to the fund. "No German firm, even if it was founded after the war, may exclude itself from the foundation initiative," Lambsdorff said. "There is no basis to evade the collective responsibility of German trade and industry." The fund is being financed 50-50 by German industry and the German government. More than 2,000 German firms have pledged money, but it is still almost 2 billion marks (dlrs 1 billion) short of its goal. More than 1 million former laborers are expected to be eligible for payments, mostly Central and Eastern Europeans. The fund will also compensate people on whom medical experiments were performed and some with other Holocaust-related claims. Lambsdorff said payments to partner organizations in Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as the Jewish Claims Conference, would begin this year. Victims would have one year to apply, he said. |