The German Association of former Children's Home Residents demand 25 billion euro

[Toland]

_. P .., .S.
. .:............. ....
....:.................._ ....,
............ .............., .:..
....... . . _:........ :..
_...... . .<........ ....
,...... ....... ..._.
_..... ..:...) .....
:.... ..:.... .....
.... _:..... .....
...... .....U..._.
..... _:..... (
O..... ......
:... ) .......
....._ . ...E:..),
.:.... ).... . _.....
..... ,...... .:....
) ..... ...:.._ .....
....... ..:..... ...+,
. :...... )..:...,. ....
.:....... ..+......., _:...
............?. .............. .....
. .......:............,. :...
. :..............) ...
.. I. .. ,D.

[Thranduil]

Experts speak of systematic violation of human reights in residential childcare in the fifties and sixties, espeically in catholic and lutheran institutions.

Assuming that the abuses are alleged to have happened in West Germany (i cannot imagine religious run schools operating in the East). The allies had overall control over what went on in the Federal Republic until 1955, i wonder were any of these institutions set up under their watch (in which case the legal issues arising from that could be interesting)? In any event if this is what the new West German regime was up to, then questions need to be asked about the contributions of the West towards the character of the new regime.

In all these cases the Churches could not act independently in taking up children as they wished... instead authorities transferred children into their care.

[Martin Mitchell]

Testing - Posting from Australia

[Martin Mitchell]

The German Association of former Children's Home Residents demand 25 billion euro in compensation

[COLOR="Teal"]Heimkinder fordern 25 Milliarden Euro[/COLOR] | [COLOR="Teal"]hpd[/COLOR] [ @ Heimkinder fordern 25 Milliarden Euro | hpd ]

( Translated from the German press release of Humanist Press Service - [COLOR="Teal"]hpd[/COLOR] - "[COLOR="SlateGray"]Menschenrechtsverletzungen[/COLOR]" = [COLOR="SlateGray"]Human Rights Abuses[/COLOR], dated 2 June 2009, 07:42, Nr. 7315 )

( a combined effort of several different translators from amongst the victims themselves )

MAINZ Germany ( [COLOR="Teal"]hpd[/COLOR] ). In preparation for the third session of the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table on "Childwelfare in Residential Institutions[/COLOR] [ [COLOR="DarkRed"]restricted per government edict to ![/COLOR] ] [COLOR="DarkRed"]between 1950-1969"[/COLOR]« [ 'Jugendwohlfahrt' / 'Fürsorgeerziehung' / 'Freiwillige Erziehungshilfe' ]«, to be held on 15 and 16 June 2009 in Berlin, the Association of former Children's Home Residents ( VEH ) have set out their political and legal demands.

At the General Meeting of the association in Mainz over the weekend [ 30.05.2009 ], a motion demanding, amongst other things, the creation of a compensation fund of 25 billion Euro was overwhelmingly passed. In addition, the former children's home residents are demanding immediate social security payments taking account of and calculated upon the years of forced labour they [ in clear breach of international law ! ] as institutionalised minors had to perform [ often for years on end and under atrocious, inhumane and often dangerous conditions ! ], and an immediate improvement in the conditions under which treatment is available to the victims for the traumas suffered by many former residents at the time and as a direct cause of the abuse and ongoing ever since.

Experts speak of »[COLOR="Red"]a systematic violation of human rights in[/COLOR] "[COLOR="Red"]residential childwelfare institutions[/COLOR]"« [COLOR="Red"]in the then[/COLOR] "[COLOR="Red"]West Germany[/COLOR]" in the fifties and sixties [ actually beginning immediately after 1945 and lasting uninterrupted until about 1985 ! ], especially in Catholic and Lutheran institutions in "West Germany". In Ireland and Canada, the complaints of former residents of these selfsame institutions have already led to compensation claims [ and actual payouts ] reaching into the billions.

The German victims’ association, ie. the VEH's legal advisor, Gerrit Wilmans [ of the law firm Vehlow & Wilmans ( Hamburg ) *** ], explains the reasoning behind the compensation demands in Germany: "These demands, though they may seem quite large at first sight, in view of the large number of people affected – the total number of claimants – and the seriousness of the violations and the damages suffered by the victims, which have adversely affected their entire lives, are rather modest. By international standards the demands made are within the normal range in relation to other known individual claims." Monika Tschapek-Güntner, newly elected chairperson of the victims’ association, tells us: "No distinction should be made as to whether this appalling abuse of children and young people was committed in Ireland, Canada or Germany. Any such acts were unworthy of any civilised country and society and should be compensated equally, no matter where they occurred."

The churches should not be allowed to shirk their responsibility !

The executive of the VEH clarified that the full compensation should not be born mainly by the taxpayer. Though the State has badly "failed in its duty of care" towards the victims as "wards of the state" the primary responsibility lays fairly and squarely with the church’s institutional-management of the church organizations and religious orders and with the agricultural and industrial and the domestic and laundry service-provider-conglomerates that profited from the forced labour of children's home residents. The chairperson of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, Herbert Steffen, who led the General Meeting [ on 30.05.2009 in Mainz ], put it as follows: "The churches and their 'voluntary' organisations have received billions of Euros from tax payers over the last few decades. They are proven owners of colossal assets. It would be a scandal, if they were to shirk their responsibility! They are required now to do everything they can to compensate for what happened to these children's home residents whilst in their care."

"A clear signal to the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table[/COLOR]«"

The executive of the VEH look forward to the next meeting of the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table on "Childwelfare in Residential Institutions[/COLOR] [ [COLOR="DarkRed"]restricted per government edict to ![/COLOR]] ] [COLOR="DarkRed"]between 1950-1969"[/COLOR]«, which will be looking at the question of compensation for the first time. "With the clear support of the General Meeting, we have sent an unmistakable signal to the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table[/COLOR]«, and now expect that the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table[/COLOR]« begin serious negotiation with ourselves and our legal advisors on compensation for former residents", declared VEH's chairperson, Tschapek-Güntner. Sharp criticism was expressed on the behaviour and attidude of the president of the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table[/COLOR]«, [COLOR="DarkRed"]Antje Vollmer[/COLOR], who [ at the last hearing on 2 and 3 April 2009 ] had refused to admit into the hearings of the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table[/COLOR]« the newly elected delegates of the VEH or their legal representatives ( reports [COLOR="Teal"]hpd[/COLOR] ). In cooperation of the Giordano Bruno Foundation, the VEH now intends to exert greater pressure on the »[COLOR="DarkRed"]Round Table[/COLOR]« in an attempt to make progress in negotiations on compensation funding. The advanced age and the acute need for treatment of the many of the affected makes any delay in these matters totally unacceptable.

On this subject, see also previous reports of [COLOR="Teal"]hpd[/COLOR] ( "Ehemalige Heimkinder düpiert" = "Former residents duped" ), ( "Kindesmissbrauch in Irland. Und Deutschland?" = "Child abuse in Ireland. And Germany?" ), as well as the original documents "Resolution of the Association" and "Notice of Demand" attached to this [COLOR="Teal"]hpd[/COLOR] Press Release @ http://hpd.de/files/Antrag_VEH.pdf and @ http://hpd.de/files/PMVEH0609.pdf [ for those who are fluent in German ].


*** Our legal representatives are the German human rights lawyer Michael Witti in Munich ( Tel.: +49 089/38157075 ) and the law firm Dr. Vehlow and Wilmans in Hamburg ( Tel.: +49 040/65055179 ), and all »[COLOR="Red"]victims of this postwar West German institutional abuse and FORCED LABOUR in institutional care[/COLOR]« who are today resident in foreign lands should contact these lawyers immediately.


I hope that our supporter »[COLOR="DarkGreen"]aggressivesecularist[/COLOR]« won't mind my /our trying to improve upon his translation and the slight expansion we have allowed ourselves ( it was a huge task and quite difficult job for us all ).


PS. When first trying to register as a user in this forum I had difficulty understanding what was required of me with regard to the question: "Who is the Taoiseach?" Not being a Gaelic speaker myself, I just couln't understand what was being required of me. I took me quite a while to work it out.

[Mar Tweedy]

Interesting that laundry work was included.

I often wonder where the Magdalene laundry women are now who were locked up for having sex, or indeed in some cases for just being at risk of having sex (being pretty) and worked like slaves in the laundries for the profit of the nuns.

I think that those who are still alive should be well-looked after in their retirement - not as acts of charity but in payment for their illegal incarceration and slave labour.

[reknaw]

Thanks for posting that, aggressivesecularist, and your translation is an accurate reflection of the original, which I have read.

One poster tries to blame the Allied occupation powers-that-be(were?) for failing to exercise oversight, but in fact they handed over responsibility for such things to the sovereign German government that came into being in 1949.

Interesting to see that the Lutherans were involved as well.

The sum of 25 billion Teueros (as the Germans now call the new currency, in a wry reference to how prices have risen) sounds massive, but remember that Germany has nearly twenty times the population of the Irish Republic and some have estimated that the final compensation bill here could come to €10 billion or even more.

I suppose governments thought they were saving money by trusting the Kiddy-Fiddler Churches and various of their organisations to take care of matters that should properly have been looked after by the State, but now the true meaning of "a stitch in time saves nine" is finally dawning on them.

[Toland]

_. P .., .S.
. .:............. ....
....:.................._ ....,
............ .............., .:..
....... . . _:........ :..
_...... . .<........ ....
,...... ....... ..._.
_..... ..:...) .....
:.... ..:.... .....
.... _:..... .....
...... .....U..._.
..... _:..... (
O..... ......
:... ) .......
....._ . ...E:..),
.:.... ).... . _.....
..... ,...... .:....
) ..... ...:.._ .....
....... ..:..... ...+,
. :...... )..:...,. ....
.:....... ..+......., _:...
............?. .............. .....
. .......:............,. :...
. :..............) ...
.. I. .. ,D.

[Thranduil]

Thanks for posting that, aggressivesecularist, and your translation is an accurate reflection of the original, which I have read.

One poster tries to blame the Allied occupation powers-that-be(were?) for failing to exercise oversight, but in fact they handed over responsibility for such things to the sovereign German government that came into being in 1949.
(

It is interesting that the scope of the inquiry only deals with cases between 1950 and 1969 (one year after when some autonomy was introduced for West Germany in running it's own affairs), perhaps it's terms were changed deliberately so as not to be concurrent with complete allied control over Federal Germany. In any event, it is a fact that Germany was occupied throughout the 50's and only became a sovereign state on May 5th 1955 (the same year the USSR cancelled it's declaration of war on the country which had been ongoing since 41). Of course, as well all know, children suffered 45-50 as well in any event.

The Catholic (and Lutheran) Church really stepped in it bigtime back then, they might have thought that because what they were doing was done with the blessing of nation states, that they had permanent immunity of some kind... That the norms existing then would always hold. Of course this was a few years after the allies had begun using millions of Germans as slave labour, even for landmine clearance... and of course Hitler ran his slave labour and death camps during the war so the detaining and use of children for labour might not have seemed a quantum leap from the mores of the time. Altogether a very gloomy and depressing period in world history, good luck to all child victims of abuse in their quest for acknowledgement and to get compensation for what they went through.

[Thranduil]

In addition, we should consider the possibility that part of the motivation was revenge, an idea that the children deserved their fate because of the deeds of the parents... a motivation that we already know was true with relation to the Lebensborn children...

Norway has since agreed to pay for the abuses which included... being

sexually abused, beaten, mass raped, urinated on and washed in chemicals

Because their fathers were German soldiers who had relationships with local girls they became the subject of intense hatred after the war ended. Many tens of thousands of young women across Europe deemed to have been collaborators by 'sleeping with the enemy' were imprisoned, beaten, tortured and killed for years after the war ended, Lebensborn shows that mercy or forgiveness were not extended to the helpless offspring of these affairs.

Norway to pay for lost years of war children - Telegraph

[Peter Briody]

Born in Clonmel, I have lived in Germany for 30 years now and I can tell you that the same abuses, reported at the round table, are still ongoing in German children's homes today. A survey, which we are presently conducting, reveals a broad spectrum of abuse and cruelty committed by the authorities, ranging from compounded offenses against the person, through to neglect, forced labor, false imprisonment and involuntary sterilization. Although we know of cases of sexual abuse, no-one has yet reported any, probably because it is difficult to talk about such things.

The evolutionary History
---------------------------------

To understand how such things could evolve since the early 50s, it is essential to look at the structures which emerged in the post war period. In 1953 the German Government defined a “dual control” (Zweigliedrigkeit) of the the youth services. This accorded the so-called “Free Bearers” (Churches NGOs etc) of youth matters a say in the financing and running of the services. In 1970 they even granted the Free Bearers 2/5 of the voting power in local and state government in matters concerning youth. Today the state is not allowed to carry out any work which can be delegated to the Free Bearers. This result of this particular piece of German “democracy” is a hybrid monster of commercialism, which can write its own pay-checks, and dictate its terms.

The Situation Today
________________

There are no government command structures at state (province) level or above but, on the other hand, there are well organized structures of the Free Bearers up to federal as well as international level. As far as can be seen, the government has been reduced to to the role of procurement agency for the Free Bearers. It provides an annual budget of 21 Billion Euros for them. The main beneficiaries are the Catholic and Evangelical churches. They get between 4000-6000 Euros per month per accommodated child, and the money is allocated on the basis of a “demand cycle”, which has an overflow into foster homes, which receive 800 to 2000 Euros per month per child. By comparison, the top quality exclusive school in Salem costs 2.600 Euros per month per child.

The Free Bearers are organized into commercial structures, which are fed by the demand cycle. About 80 Children per day are taken into care, partly from intact families, many in dawn police raids, using extreme brutality. A sample of the commercialism at play is illustrated in the author Dr. Karin Jäckels essay “The Removal of Children: A Family Calamity”:


The evolutionary History
---------------------------------

To understand how such things could evolve since the early 50s, it is essential to look at the structures which emerged in the post war period. In 1953 the German Government defined a “dual control” (Zweigliedrigkeit) of the the youth services. This accorded the so-called “Free Bearers” (Churches NGOs etc) of youth matters a say in the financing and running of the services. In 1970 they even granted the Free Bearers 2/5 of the voting power in local and state government in matters concerning youth. Today the state is not allowed to carry out any work which can be delegated to the Free Bearers. This result of this particular piece of German “democracy” is a hybrid monster of commercialism, which can write its own pay-checks, and dictate its terms.

The Situation Today
________________

There are no government command structures at state (province) level or above but, on the other hand, there are well organized structures of the Free Bearers up to federal as well as international level. As far as can be seen, the government has been reduced to to the role of procurement agency for the Free Bearers. It provides an annual budget of 21 Billion Euros for them. The main beneficiaries are the Catholic and Evangelical churches. They get between 4000-6000 Euros per month per accommodated child, and the money is allocated on the basis of a “demand cycle”, which has an overflow into foster homes, which receive 800 to 2000 Euros per month per child. By comparison, the top quality exclusive school in Salem costs 2.600 Euros per month per child.

The Free Bearers are organized into commercial structures, which are fed by the demand cycle. About 80 Children per day are taken into care, partly from intact families, many in dawn police raids, using extreme brutality. A sample of the commercialism at play is illustrated in the author Dr. Karin Jäckels essay “The Removal of Children: A Family Calamity”:



The press advert reads, “The Management of a children's home ( run on qualified family lines in SL H) seeks a trustworthy person with good contacts to the dispatching(sic!) departments of the youth services on a paid basis. Tel: 0178/8548511”

Extrapolating between Present and Past
-----------------------------------------------------
The inmate population of the children's homes has changed in nature over the years: In the immediate post-war period children were either war orphans or had to be given up by their parents for various reasons. Now these inmates are composed of children taken out of their families for no good reason, divorce cases, orphans or victims of other social circumstances. The task of extrapolating backwards, to find clues to a lot of unanswered questions, is quite difficult. Here the Irish CICA (the Ryan Report) report is very helpful, since we will have to borrow parameters from it. The German Government will not be able to produce anything like this reporting quality.

The former home children in Germany have a big problem, because there is little time left for the appropriate actions. They are at least 9 years behind the Irish authorities in dealing with the problem. The German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen ordered a “round table” discussion, which is the guarantee that nothing useful will come of it. She appointed Antje Vollmer a politician and pastor of the Evangelical Church to head these discussions. By analogy you could just as well have asked “Lucky” Luciano to run the Anti-Narcotics Commission. It is a problem, that only impartial help from outside can solve. Is Mr. Justice Ryan available perhaps?

Warning to non-German Citizens.
---------------------------------------------

Any persons, with young families, thinking of coming work in Germany should consider that one in every 453 children (Karin Jäkel's figures) from intact families, are being taken into care by the German authorities. A disproportionately high number of these are non-Germans (26% our figures). I would call that an unacceptable risk for any family.