The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (German: Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft; acronym EVZ), is a German Federal organisation with the purpose of making financial compensation available "to former forced laborers and to those affected by other injustices from the National Socialist period".

Background

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2007-0074, IG-Farbenwerke Auschwitz

Throughout

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

about 8.4 million civilian

forced labor Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

ers from all over Europe and 4.5 million

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

were deployed as slave and forced laborers in

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...

labor camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...

or other places of detention for industrial, agricultural or public administrative purposes.

The Foundation

Compensation

The foundation was established in August 2000 following several years of national and international negotiations in which the German government was represented by

Otto Graf Lambsdorff Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff, known as Otto Graf Lambsdorff (20 December 1926 – 5 December 2009), was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party (FDP). Early life and education Lambsdorff was bo ...

. The Foundation's capital of

DEM DEM was the ISO 4217 currency code for the Deutsche Mark, former currency of Germany Computing * Digital elevation model, a digital representation of ground-surface topography or terrain ** .dem, a common extension for USGS DEM files * Discrete ...

10.1 billion (EUR 5.2 billion) was provided in equal amounts by 6,500 German companies to the

German Industry Foundation Initiative German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

and the German Federal Government. The compensation payments were made in cooperation with international partner organisations in the respective countries or representing international organisations. The Foundation is supervised by its Board of Trustees, comprising 27 members from various nations. Between 2001 and 2007 a total of EUR 4.4 billion was paid out to more than 1.66 million people in almost 100 countries. The individual payments depended on different criteria such as *the type of detention and its conditions *the type of forced labor *forced deportation Inmates of a concentration camp, ghetto or those in similar conditions received a compensation of up to EUR 7,670. Persons who were forcefully deported to Germany or German-occupied countries and lived in detention or similar conditions received a compensation of up to EUR 2,560. Persons who worked in agriculture received up to EUR 2,500.

The project's future

EUR 358 million of the Foundation's capital was allocated to a grant-giving foundation in order to provide project funding with an annual amount of EUR 8 million. This is primarily used to support international programmes and projects in *critical examination of history, *Working for human rights, and *Commitment to the victims of National Socialism. As of January 2008 the Foundation has spent EUR 34.3 million and has supported 1,300 projects worldwide since its foundation such as the "Train of Remembrance", a project to commemorate the role of the German railways in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

and the

Leo Baeck Leo Baeck (23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during the Nazi era ...

-programme to raise the "awareness of the intellectual and cultural heritage of German-language Judaism in schools and universities".

Compensation to Germans used as forced labor after the war is not possible to claim in Germany, the possibility was removed by the statute of limitations since September 29, 1978.Spiegel.de
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References

External links

Anniversary Website: 20 Years of EVZ FoundationAustrian FundFoundation Polish-German Reconciliation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Holocaust charities and reparations Unfree labor during World War II Foundations based in Germany