Ostarbeiter Applications Approach Deadline

Ukrainian citizens who were forcibly deported to Germany as slave labor during World War II must formally apply before December 31 for compensation from Germany’s Memory, Responsibility, and Future Federal Foundation. A written application must be submitted before that date to the Ukrainian Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation Foundation or one of its regional branches even if the applicant has no supporting documents. What is crucial is the date of sending as recorded by the envelope’s postmark, Interfax-Ukraine reports. The foundation offers ample help in tracing such documents if the applicant furnishes all the required information about the time, place, and conditions of slave labor. In addition, the applicant has the right to furnish his own proof of slave labor within six months. Should the compensation seeker for some reason fail to lodge the application within the stipulated period, that is, before December 31, 2001, he/she or in case of his/her death his/her heirs will lose the right to receive money from the German foundation. As is known, those eligible for German foundation payments are former concentration camp inmates (according to the official list of concentration camps) and ghettoes (DM 15,000 each); slave laborers in the industry and the public sector (DM 4,300); farming, public utilities and household workers (DM 1,500); and children then under the age of twelve (DM 1,500).