Newsroom Veranstaltungen Team & Kontakt

Damaged Justice

The recognition of the fate of former forced labourers came too late.

The cartoon depicts the path to compensation as a board game. The path and, in particular, the obstacles on the way to compensation are depicted ironically.
1/2
“Don’t Let it Upset You – Reparations is just like Ludo !”, cartoon by Peter Hollstein, 1951.
The newspaper caricature published in the Allgemeine Jüdische Illustrierte was an ironic commentary on the process of compensation, which was marked by impenetrable bureaucracy and arrogance toward the victims.
©Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin
A poster with the Mercedes Benz logo. Beneath the logo is a large text: "DESIGN. PERFORMANCE. SLAVE LABOR". There is also the claim "JUSTICE. COMPENSATE. NOW" on the poster.
2/2
Advertisement in the New York Times, October 1999.
This and similar advertisement in US newspapers protested the sluggish pace of negotiations on the compensation of former forced laborers. The advertisements were placed by various organizations, including the Jewish service organization B’nai B’rith.
©ullstein bild (Reuters)

Former forced laborers wanted recognition and compensation for what they had suffered, but in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic their demands fell on deaf ears for the most part. But it was not until sixty years after the war’s end – and only after former forced laborers had brought class action suits against German companies in the U.S. – that reunified Germany and private enterprise were prepared to acknowledge the injustice that had been perpetrated.

Bowing to international pressure, the Federal Republic of Germany and business enterprises together paid into a trust. Beginning in 2001, 1.7 million former forced laborers received aid payments from the foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” if they agreed to waive further claims. For most of the individuals concerned, however, this acknowledgement of the injustice suffered came too late – they were already dead.


var _paq = window._paq = window._paq || []; /* tracker methods like "setCustomDimension" should be called before "trackPageView" */ _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="https://matomo.buchenwald.de/"; _paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'matomo.php']); _paq.push(['setSiteId', '22']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.async=true; g.src=u+'matomo.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })();