A $7,150,000 out-of-court settlement with former Auschwitz camp laborers of the I. G. Farben Chemical Corporation was approved during the weekend by an overwhelming majority of the company’s shareholders at a meeting at which openly pro-Nazi sentiments were expressed by the opposing minority.
The agreement was signed in February by I. G. Farben’s principal officers after negotiations with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The vote was 9,000,000 for and 700,000 against.
Under terms of the agreement, the Claims Conference will distribute 90 per cent of the settlement funds among Jewish survivors of Buna-Monowitz and those other plants operated by Faxben during the war with manpower supplied by the SS from inmates of the nearby death camp.
The next step is legislative action by the German Bundestag curtailing the legal period of grace for filing of claims, which is expected to take place before the end of April. A total of 700 Stockholders, an extraordinary large number, participated in the meeting. All but two of the opposition speakers came out flatly against any payments and the more demagogic the statements the greater was the applause.
In the six-hour debate, foes of the agreement argued that I. G. Farben should resume its fight against the lower court victory obtained by Norbert Wollheim, now a United States citizen, who as a former Auschwitz inmate brought a test suit against the cartels six years ago. Foes of the settlement also argued that since Farben had declared its willingness to pay, so many French, Dutch, Polish and Hungarian non-Jewish inmates of Auschwitz had come forward with claims that terms of the settlement might be jeopardized.
A special trusteeship corporation has been set up here by the Jewish Claims Conference with E. G. Lowenthal as manager and with branch offices in New York and Tel Aviv. This corporation will verify applications by Auschwitz survivors and make payments. Beneficiaries will be all Jewish or former political concentration camp victims employed as slave labor by Farben. Payments are expected to range from $450 to $1,200 in accordance with the period of slave labor for the survivor.
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