VW washes hands of slave labour
By Norm Dixon
Giant German-based multinational car company Volkswagen is refusing to pay back wages and compensation to people forced to work in its factories as slaves during the second world war.
Similar compensation claims have been lodged against US car giant General Motors. The companies are just two huge capitalist firms that collaborated and profited from the Nazi regime.
VW boss Klaus Kocks admits his company violated workers' human rights, but claims it is the German government that is responsible for compensation.
Thirty workers are suing VW in a class action for unpaid wages and compensation for the period they were forced to work for the company during 1944 and 1945. The workers were forced to make armaments at VW's Wolfsburg factory while teenagers, after being selected from concentration camp inmates. They began at 6.30am and worked until 6pm without pay.
Two-thirds of VW workers during the war were forced labourers. They included more than 1500 Jewish people, mainly women, and thousands of eastern European and Soviet prisoners of war taken from the Auschwitz death camp. They were transferred to nearby camps where hundreds died from overwork and disease.
The workers have appealed for support from Social Democrat leader Gerhard Schröder. He is premier of the Lower Saxony state government, which controls 20% of the car company, and sits on the VW board. Schröder, who will challenge conservative Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the September general election, is "avoiding the issue", say the workers' spokespeople.