Status: 09.11.2021 12:08 p.m.
Her office was created in June, and now the SED victim commissioner Zupke has presented her first report. Zupke sees progress, but called for relief in the recognition of consequential health damage suffered by victims of the dictatorship.
The SED victim commissioner Evelyn Zupke has welcomed the progress made in recent years, but at the same time called for further action to be taken to improve the victims of the SED dictatorship. This is particularly true “when it comes to health and the social situation of those affected,” said Zupke on the occasion of the handover of her first activity report to Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD).
Politically persecuted people in the former GDR should have easier access to financial aid. “Anyone who fought for freedom and self-determination in the SED dictatorship must not get sidelined in today’s democratic society,” said Zupke.
“Major improvements”
Although the Bundestag had “decided on important improvements for the victims of the SED dictatorship” in the past few years, Zupke criticized nine out of ten victims with their applications for the recognition of consequential health problems. The reason is that the victims mostly fail to “prove the required causal connection between the experiences of repression and the current damage to health”. However, this did not give those formerly politically persecuted any access to the necessary support services. “Together we must prevent the victims from failing because of the bureaucracy’s hurdles,” demanded the victim ombudsman.
Zupke therefore advocated a fundamental simplification of the procedures. For example, “in the case of political prisoners who are suffering from damage to their health today, an assessment can be dispensed with,” she demanded. “Those affected are getting older and their health situation is increasingly coming to the fore. Years of appraisal procedures, which usually end in vain, can no longer be expected of the SED victims,” Zupke clarified.
Hardship Fund would be an “important sign”
As a further necessary means, she named the establishment of a nationwide hardship fund. With this, “politics could send an important signal towards the victims all over Germany”. This applies particularly to the more than three million people who left the GDR between 1949 and 1990.
The victim ombudsman took up her newly created office in June. At that time, the previously existing Stasi records authority was also dissolved; their files and tasks were transferred to the Federal Archives.