Some 400,000 former Russian prisoners of war forced to work in Nazi labor camps during World War II are to receive up to 15,000 marks (6,500 dollars) compensation from the German authorities starting next month, officials said Thursday.
The payments will be made out of a 843 million marks fund created by the German government and companies which exploited POW labour and will be spread over a period of three years, Lyudmila Narusova, president of the Reconciliation and Understanding fund, told reporters.
"The money will be channeled through the state-guaranteed Sberbank which has subsidiaries throughout the country," Narusova said, noting that the great majority of the POWs in question lived outside Moscow and observing that the arrangement would also limit the scope for embezzlement.
A 400 million DM compensation fund for former POWs was set up under an agreement between former president Boris Yeltsin and then German chancellor Helmut Kohl, of which some 83 million DM were defrauded between 1993 and 2000, Narusova noted -- MOSCOW (AFP)
