It is highly probable that the German Bundestag will approve as early as next week a bill that will make it possible to start paying compensation to former Ostarbeiteren (wartime slave laborers), Michael Jansen, chairman of the Memory, Responsibility, and Future Foundation, told journalists on May 23. Berlin has so far been dragging its feet on compensation payments allegedly due to lack of legal guarantees. German enterprises, which contributed 50% of money to the DM 10 billion compensation fund, wanted to be certain that former prisoners and slave laborers will be filing no new suits against them. Although all outstanding problems have been solved with the five principal contracting parties to the compensation issue — Ukraine, Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Belarus — the United States has long refused to provide any such guarantees. Some American courts did not dismiss a number of lawsuits against German companies until very recently. And only after all the problems had been settled with the US was Berlin able to say that now we can expect the compensation procedure to begin.
The first piece of good news Mr. Jansen announced was that the first installment, to be paid former Ostarbeiteren, will account for 65% of the total. As is known, payments will be effected in two stages in accordance with the allocation of two installments. Earlier, the Germans said the former slave laborers would receive only 35% at the first stage and the rest in the second. Berlin must have made concessions to the victims after certain consultations. Mr. Jansen also said the former slaves might receive their first payments as early as at the beginning of July. Until then, German representatives will carry out a selective check of the papers submitted by compensation applicants. In any case, there is no question of fully checking all the applications, for this would take an unduly long time, Mr. Jansen emphasized. Chairman of the Ukrainian Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation Ihor Lushnikov announced that 480,000 applications have now been registered in Ukraine. This number is expected to have risen to 540,000 by August 11, the application deadline. Incidentally, the German representative denied a journalist’s allegation that the German foundation is going to set up a staff of 1000 and spend DM 800 million to check the applications.
Ukrainian foundation representatives, the actual organizers of payments, on their part assured the FRG that the compensation process would be fully transparent. The National Bank of Ukraine, Cabinet of Ministers, and Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation will report to the president quarterly. Under last year’s Ukrainian government resolution, Mr. Lushnikov recalled, payments in Ukraine are to be effected by thirteen Ukrainian banks. It is worth noting that the German side would like to see this number reduced. There are several reasons for this. First, it will be easier to monitor a lesser number of banks (evidently, the point is to avoid a situation that occurred earlier, when payments were made by Hradobank). Secondly, a large number of banks means correspondingly larger expenses, Mr. Jansen informed The Day. Moreover, the German representative admitted that “a problem of regional banking coverage” might exist in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Mr. Lushnikov told The Day’s correspondent that the German side had received all the necessary guarantees, the President had signed the required instructions, while the very process of payment “is our internal business.”
According to the Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation, former concentration camp and ghetto prisoners are to receive 15,000 German marks, industrial workers DM 4,300, workers on private farms up to DM 1,500, and inmates in other camps from DM 5,000 to DM 12,000 in compensation.
