Czech ghetto workers to get paid

Czechs who worked in Nazi ghettos may finally get their promised payments from the German government. Representatives of the Czech Council for Victims of Nazism discussed the payments for some 700 eligible Czechs with German authorities in Berlin on Thursday. Although a law was passed offering compensation to the workers in 2002, the German pension authority has not made the payments due to bureaucratic problems. Members of Germany’s Parliament have promised to help resolve the issue. The main sticking point was the need for a certificate from the Czech Labor Ministry stating that the claimants had not already received compensation for work in the ghettos in their current pension payments. Germany has been paying out compensation for slave labor during World War II since 2000, but the payments have excluded those who worked in ghettos.