The Daimler-Benz Corp., manufacturer of the prestigious Mercedes-Benz car, formally acknowledged that it employed thousands of slave laborers during the Nazi era in a report prepared for it by an historian, Prof. Hans Pohl, just released here.
The report, however, makes no reference to possible reparations for the surviving slave laborers or their families. According to the report, some 5,000 slave laborers were employed by Daimler-Benz in 1941 and the number rose to 18,000 in 1943, most of them recruited from among concentration camp inmates, including large numbers of Jews.
The slave laborers received no compensation whatever and, near the end of the war, were so badly treated that they could not work.
The company ordered the report last year after it was criticized for the way it handled claims by former slave laborers. Daimler-Benz rejected them initially on grounds that they had neither legal nor moral standing. But later it signaled readiness to discuss the matter with Jewish and other organizations representing former slave laborers.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
