BERLIN – Former Nazi era slave labourers issued a demand Wednesday for a portion of the ongoing liquidation payout for defunct I.G. Farben corporation as compensation for their suffering.

The group claimed they have “moral claims” to some of a purported USD 2.2 billion in funds from an I.G. Farben subsidiary in a Swiss bank account.

“The surviving victims of this company are the top priority creditors,” the group said in a statement.

I.G. Farben, the German chemical company that made poison gas for Nazi death camps, set up a compensation fund for Nazi-era slave labourers in 1999.

Once the world’s largest chemical company, IG Farben was broken up in 1952 by the Allies, who ordered the company into liquidation. It remains largely as a trust to settle claims and lawsuits from the Nazi era. Dozens are still pending in German courts.

I.G. Farben had an estimated 83,000 slave workers by 1944 at the Auschwitz complex in what is now Poland. Its subsidiary Degesch produced Zyklon B for Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers.

DPA
Subject: German news