USA: NAZI-ERA SLAVE LABOUR CAMP SURVIVORS LATEST скачать в хорошем качестве

USA: NAZI-ERA SLAVE LABOUR CAMP SURVIVORS LATEST

(4 Nov 1999) English/Nat U-S lawmakers are presenting a bill to Congress which would ensure that Nazi-era slave labour camp survivors would receive compensation for their forced work during World War Two. On a visit to Washington, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said his government would not block any negotiations between German industry and former slave labourers. U-S lawmakers will introduce a bill which if approved would ensure that slave labourers who worked for German industries in forced labour camps during World War Two could seek compensation under the U-S court system. The move, led by senators Charles Schumer and Robert Torricelli comes days before a new round of negotiations with many of Germany's largest corporations and the German government. Among the companies involved in the negotiations are Volkswagen, BMW, Bayer, Daimler-Chrysler, BASF, Allianz, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Hoechst and Siemens. American companies like Ford and General Motors, which allegedly benefited from slave labour at the German plants during the Nazi era, are not participating in the talks. Senator Charles Schumer, one of the backers of the slave labour bill said it was scandalous that the companies involved had made no compensation to their victims. SOUNDBITE: (English) Fifty-five years later these companies these companies involved in slave labour have not been forced to pay. They prosper and some even pay pensions to the war criminals who carried out these policies. but they have not paid one cent to the people on whose backs these fortunes were built. SUPER CAPTION: Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat from New York German companies are under pressure from a series of U-S class-action suits demanding compensation from modern corporations with a record of using slave labour during Nazi rule of Germany. Lawyers recently reduced their demand from 30 (B) billion to 12 (B) billion dollars, but have refused to go below that. Senator Robert Torricelli, the other backer of the bill, warned the German companies that the problem would not go away. SOUNDBITE: (English) Under no circumstances in the remaining years of the lives of these victims are they going to find that there is not compensation for a fair settlement. There is going to be a fair settlement by one means or another. It would be foolish for any of those corporations, who are now at issue, who participated in this scheme to rob people of years of their lives and to force their labour, to believe that time will solve this problem, that we will go away or ever fail. We will not fail. SUPER CAPTION: Senator Robert Torricelli, Democrat from New Jersey The bill would allow survivors to sue companies that profited at the laborers' expense through forced labour, involuntary medical experiments, or the Nazi "Aryanization" Program that transferred Jewish-owned land to Germans of Aryan descent. The bill would also extend the statute of limitations on these claims to the year 2010. One of the victims of the slave labour system spoke bitterly of his childhood. SOUNDBITE:(English) I was denied schooling, I was denied food, I was denied almost air, you know, breathing. They grabbed me and they put me on a truck and sent me away to an ammunition factory. I didn't have any knowledge what to do. We were forced under gun to work very hard. SUPER CAPTION: Ben Schreibman, slave camp survivor The attorney for the surviving wartime slaves said the companies could well afford to pay their debt to their victims. SOUNDBITE: (English) SUPER CAPTION: Mel Weiss, attorney for survivors Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...