The I.G. Farben chemical trust at a meeting of its board of directors yesterday decided to offer $7,000,000 in settlement of all claims for former slave laborers–most of them Jews–employed by the company at the Monowitz synthetic rubber plant, it was announced here today. The offer which is expected to be made to the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany results from the successful suit of Norbert Wollheim, one-time slave laborer, postwar leader of German Jewry and currently a resident of New York.
Mr. Wollheim sued for back wages and compensation for cruelties suffered at the Monowitz butane plant where he and thousands of other Jewish and non-Jewish inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp were forced to work. Most of the slave laborers were either worked to death or gassed at the camp when they collapsed of overwork.
I.G. Farben fought the suit on the grounds that it was not responsible for the working conditions or treatment of the workers who were supplied by the Nazi authorities and whose wages were turned over to those authorities. After its appeal to a higher court, the case was suspended and the court suggested that the company seek to reach a settlement with slave laborer claimants or their heirs.
Thus far only 2,400 claims have been filed by slave laborers, but it is estimated that as many as 43,000 persons would be eligible.
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