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Germany’s Starts Paying Compensation to War-time Slave Laborers

February 5, 1959
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The first payments of compensation to war-time slave laborers in I. G. Farben plants at the Auschwitz concentration camp have been sent out by the German Ministry of finance, it was announced here today.

Some 1,500 Israelis, survivors ol the Nazi regime, are eligible for payments. The advance payments on claims against I. G. Farben will be in two amounts: 2,500 marks for those who worked more than six months in the slave labor gangs, and 1,500 for those who worked between one and six months.

The case was originally prosecuted by Norbert Wollheim, a postwar leader of German Jewry in the British zone of occupied Germany. Mr. Wollheim, who has since become a United States citizen, fought the case through the German courts and was victorious in his contention that the huge German chemical trust was responsible for wages withheld from the Slaves and for damages resulting from injury in the plants. So far, more than 9,000 applications for payment have been received from many countries.

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