Loopholes In Laws To Help Victims Of Nazis

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27632, 13 April 1955, Page 8

Loopholes In Laws To Help Victims Of Nazis

(Special Correspondent -N.ZJ 3 A.)

(Rec; 8 p.m.) LONDON, -April 12. The Federal German Government is preparing important legislation on the treatment of victims of Np&ism, with the object of providing for compensation of those whose legitimate claims have so far been rejected on purely technical grounds by German courts, says the Bonn correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian.’’ The legislation should be laid befc/re Parliament before the summer recess.

“The ability of Gerinan lawyers to discover legal loopholes in such claims has been amply deraonstrated since the compensation lav? was passed last year,” the correspondent says.

“One of the main,' objections to the acceptance of the claims of displaced persons who suffered appalling maltreatment was that they were persecuted either on grounds of their nationality ’or because .they opposed the Nazi occupation of their country in some way. /

“In November* a court at Kiel rejected the clairn of a Pole on the grounds that b/is nationality and not his political convictions had been the reason for hisr imprisonment in concentration camps. This case has been used as a pr<eeedent ever since.

“German courts have as a result been able to reject the claims of men vftio were rounded up in Gestapo raids

and taken away to forced labour, or of people who were arrested as hostages although they had taken no actions gainst the German authorities. “Tney can reject the claims of people who failed *to report to forced Labour bureaux, or who happened to be relations of escaped prisoners of war and who, in both cases, were thrown into concentration camps. “Other categories of claimants include people who have received no satisfaction for their sufferings in such places as Auschwitz and Buchenwald. “Among these are those who listened in to the 8.8. C., who were suspected of distributing ‘illegal news,’ who failed to comply with the identification regulations imposed by the Nazis, or who fought in the Warsaw rising. “There are at least 1000 known cases of people in Western Germany who come into these categories, and there are thousands in other countries.

‘‘German Government spokesmen maintain that the Federal compensation law was never intended to lead to these anomalies. A special committee has therefore been redrafting all clauses of the law which offer legal loopholes. “The first object will be to ensure compensation for displaced persons who were maltreated by the Nazis and whose health and earning capacity has suffered.”