Subject: Fwd: Forgotten Victims of the Nazis
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 12:30:03 +0100 (MET)
From: w.schulz@...
Dear colleagues and dear friends,
By copy of this email I send you the appeal of KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbl e.V.
(Society for Contacts to Countries of the Former Soviet Union).
I would like focus your attention on the really tragic cases of
forgotten victims of the Nazis.
Please take a moment to read the appeal, to share your thoughts for
the victims and think, how you can help. You may wish to circulate the
appeal among your friends and that these cases become aware of the
public at large.
Thank you in advance.
Yours,
Wolfgang P. Schulz
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Forgotten Victims of the Nazis
No one can deny that Germany is a state founded on the rule
of law. One thing that enables us to make this statement is that
the Federal Government has declared its responsibility for paying
compensation to the victims of National Socialism and that the
story of the Holocaust is embedded in German public consciousness.
However, the crimes of National Socialism cannot be reduced to the
Holocaust. The embarrassing discussion about the compensation of those
forced into slave labor by the Nazis made it clear how difficult it is
to cope with German history. Only pressure on the part of American
lawyers managed to convince some German businesses to donate at least
a symbolic material equivalent of the profit gained through slave
labor during World War Two in compensation.
However, the German foundations responsible for compensating former
slave laborers ignored those victims of the Nazis who performed the
hardest slave labor and who formed the second-largest group of Nazi
victims, after the European Jews. Many were murdered for racist and
ideological reasons, while most died of hunger, cold and disease. They
were worked to death as slave labor. After their liberation, many
survivors died in Stalin's work camps.
They were stigmatized as "traitors".
The German government refuses to pay compensation to the few surviving
former Soviet prisoners of war. Their legal arguments are a scandal,
citing the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
Here it is stated that healthy prisoners of war, with the exception of
officers, can be used as laborers. It is stipulated that they can be
used neither for dangerous work nor for work directly related to the
war effort (Art. 31 of the Geneva Convention). According to Art. 2,
prisoners of war must be protected from acts of violence.
The German army fulfilled the conditions of the Geneva Convention -
but only with regard to prisoners of war from the western allied
armies.
For Russian prisoners of war there was only one "law": the
exploitation of their labor to the point of death. Contrary to all
standards of international law, including the Hague Convention of
1899, these people were abused and humiliated. The Nuremberg War
Crimes Trials judged the Nazi regime's treatment of Soviet prisoners
of war as criminal in the extreme.
Ignoring this historical judgment, the German government evades its
responsibility as the successor state to the Third Reich. While some
civilian slave laborers from the former Soviet Union are now already
receiving official "compensation" from Germany, former slave laborers
who were prisoners of war receive nothing. This leads us to complain
of insufficient "rule of law" in Germany.
Today the former Soviet prisoners of war are on average 80 years old.
Their numbers - now about 45,000 - are decreasing daily. Nearly all of
them live in abject poverty, traumatized by terrible memories and
lifelong discrimination.
KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbl e.V. (Society for Contacts to Countries of the
Former Soviet Unction) is an NGO which offers practical assistance to
victims of National Socialism in the countries of the former Soviet
Union. In the past three years we have distributed more than 100,000
euros to former civilian forced laborers on numerous trips to the
Ukraine. Now we call for international assistance for the former
Soviet prisoners of war!
Donations account of KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbl e.V.: 306 55 99 006, Berliner
Volksbank, BLZ: 10090000, code: "Kriegsgefangene"
http://www.kontakte-kontakty.de
kontakte@...
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 12:30:03 +0100 (MET)
From: w.schulz@...
Dear colleagues and dear friends,
By copy of this email I send you the appeal of KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbl e.V.
(Society for Contacts to Countries of the Former Soviet Union).
I would like focus your attention on the really tragic cases of
forgotten victims of the Nazis.
Please take a moment to read the appeal, to share your thoughts for
the victims and think, how you can help. You may wish to circulate the
appeal among your friends and that these cases become aware of the
public at large.
Thank you in advance.
Yours,
Wolfgang P. Schulz
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Forgotten Victims of the Nazis
No one can deny that Germany is a state founded on the rule
of law. One thing that enables us to make this statement is that
the Federal Government has declared its responsibility for paying
compensation to the victims of National Socialism and that the
story of the Holocaust is embedded in German public consciousness.
However, the crimes of National Socialism cannot be reduced to the
Holocaust. The embarrassing discussion about the compensation of those
forced into slave labor by the Nazis made it clear how difficult it is
to cope with German history. Only pressure on the part of American
lawyers managed to convince some German businesses to donate at least
a symbolic material equivalent of the profit gained through slave
labor during World War Two in compensation.
However, the German foundations responsible for compensating former
slave laborers ignored those victims of the Nazis who performed the
hardest slave labor and who formed the second-largest group of Nazi
victims, after the European Jews. Many were murdered for racist and
ideological reasons, while most died of hunger, cold and disease. They
were worked to death as slave labor. After their liberation, many
survivors died in Stalin's work camps.
They were stigmatized as "traitors".
The German government refuses to pay compensation to the few surviving
former Soviet prisoners of war. Their legal arguments are a scandal,
citing the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
Here it is stated that healthy prisoners of war, with the exception of
officers, can be used as laborers. It is stipulated that they can be
used neither for dangerous work nor for work directly related to the
war effort (Art. 31 of the Geneva Convention). According to Art. 2,
prisoners of war must be protected from acts of violence.
The German army fulfilled the conditions of the Geneva Convention -
but only with regard to prisoners of war from the western allied
armies.
For Russian prisoners of war there was only one "law": the
exploitation of their labor to the point of death. Contrary to all
standards of international law, including the Hague Convention of
1899, these people were abused and humiliated. The Nuremberg War
Crimes Trials judged the Nazi regime's treatment of Soviet prisoners
of war as criminal in the extreme.
Ignoring this historical judgment, the German government evades its
responsibility as the successor state to the Third Reich. While some
civilian slave laborers from the former Soviet Union are now already
receiving official "compensation" from Germany, former slave laborers
who were prisoners of war receive nothing. This leads us to complain
of insufficient "rule of law" in Germany.
Today the former Soviet prisoners of war are on average 80 years old.
Their numbers - now about 45,000 - are decreasing daily. Nearly all of
them live in abject poverty, traumatized by terrible memories and
lifelong discrimination.
KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbl e.V. (Society for Contacts to Countries of the
Former Soviet Unction) is an NGO which offers practical assistance to
victims of National Socialism in the countries of the former Soviet
Union. In the past three years we have distributed more than 100,000
euros to former civilian forced laborers on numerous trips to the
Ukraine. Now we call for international assistance for the former
Soviet prisoners of war!
Donations account of KONTAKTE-KOHTAKTbl e.V.: 306 55 99 006, Berliner
Volksbank, BLZ: 10090000, code: "Kriegsgefangene"
http://www.kontakte-kontakty.de
kontakte@...