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German Court Delays Hearings on Claim by Jewish Slave Laborer

September 17, 1954
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The Superior Court of Frankfurt postponed today hearings on a case involving payment of back wages and damages to a Jewish slave laborer of the IG Farben synthetic rubber plant at Monowitz until next Jan. 4.

The case deals with the claim of Norbert Wollheim, onetime slave laborer of the Nazis, subsequently a Jewish leader in post-war Germany and now a resident of New York, who won a verdict in a Frankfurt lower court granting him some $2,400 in damages and back pay for the time he worked at the IG Farben plant. The plant was established near Monowitz to draw on the labor pool of inmates of the Oswiecim satellite camp.

The case is of great importance because both the company and representatives of some 2,200 surviving Monowitz slave laborers who worked at the rubber plant have agreed to abide by the principles of the Wollheim case in handling subsequent claims of a like nature. The appeal, brought by IG Farben, was originally scheduled for hearing last April, postponed until today and was again delayed because IG Farben lawyers insisted they needed more time to study the voluminous briefs in the case.

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