21 September 2007
A one-off payment of € 2,000 (US$ 2,795) by the German government to survivors who were forced to work in Jewish ghettos established by the Nazis in central and eastern Europe is "embarrassingly insufficient," according to Volker Beck, a senior lawmaker of the Green Party in the German parliament. Beck’s statement came in response to a decision by the German government to compensate Jewish ghetto workers who have not received any payments yet. While many victims of the Nazis' forced labor program received a compensation through a German fund that ended payments at the end of 2006, an estimated 50,000 victims who were forced to work in ghettos established by the Nazis did not qualify. They have not yet received any financial compensation for their labor. Beck, who was actively involved in the setting-up of the salve laborer compensation fund, said that the payment did not “do justice to the fate of former persecuted ghetto workers” and that € 2,000 were “not a fair compensation." The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany also said the sum was insufficient, but welcomed Germany's recognition of ghetto workers and called the offer a "positive step."
