SED victims: The long struggle for compensation

Thousands of victims of East German injustice are fighting for compensation, but the authorities believed the files of the East German authorities more than those affected, according to a victim representative in the contrasts-Interview. The Ministry of Social Affairs apparently sees no need for action.

By Tom Fugmann, RBB

Visiting the former youth work center in Torgau is still a difficult journey for Ralf Weber, even half a century later. The 66-year-old was locked in a windowless room for days. A thick layer of bricks prevented the outside world from seeing young people being humiliated and beaten. “There’s no screaming going outside here,” says Weber ARD-political magazine contrasts, “whoever comes down here will be beaten mercilessly.” The so-called Jugendwerkhöfe officially served to re-educate problematic young people to become “socialist personalities” and to teach them discipline.

Young people should be “transformed”.

Weber reports on beating squads that suddenly came into the cells: “I have to stand here in the cell and then they attack me. They just hit me with their fists, with a club.” As a teenager, he went through one ordeal after another. At the age of six he came to the home for the first time – the GDR youth welfare service assumed that his single mother was overwhelmed with his upbringing. Nine children’s and special children’s homes followed.

At the age of ten he had to work four hours a day on the LPG, at the age of 14 he was doing piecework in steel production. From this and from years of abuse, his spine is deformed and his intervertebral discs are damaged. Nevertheless, like thousands of other victims, he is still struggling to receive financial compensation for his mental and physical suffering. He has long been criminally rehabilitated, years ago the courts found that he was wrongly imprisoned in the children’s home, in the youth work center and in the GDR prison. Therefore, as a victim of SED injustice, he has a right to medical rehabilitation.

Courts do not recognize damages

But he is refused by the responsible pension offices and social courts. For 28 years now, he has been waging a futile battle with them. In the end, the Dresden State Social Court decided that the damage to the spine was not “due to imprisonment or stays in homes”. The court is also unable to recognize a “damage-related loss of earnings”.

Ralf Weber, on the other hand, refers to 20 court-proof expert opinions that prove his multiple wear and tear in the body. According to the state social court, however, a direct connection with the forced activities at the time could no longer be established after such a long time. Especially since this physical exploitation is not noted in the files of those affected. That’s why providing evidence isn’t easy, explains Dieter Dombrowski, chairman of the Union of Victims’ Associations of Communist Tyranny.

The damage to health resulting from abuse, imprisonment and forced labor is almost never recognized by the responsible pension offices, he says. In fact, the euphemistic file entries of the GDR authorities are believed more than the victims themselves. “The pension offices are waging regular defensive battles against those who have been injured by the SED system,” criticizes Dombrowski. Since decisions are only made on the basis of the files, the applicants are faced with the task of proving their damage in detail decades later. “This is not always possible.”

Criticism also comes from the Federal Commissioner for Victims of SED injustice, Evelyn Zupke: “Of course, there is nothing in the detention files about a water cell, about solitary confinement, about dark detention, about a tiger cage,” says Zupke in an interview contrasts. “I find that shocking. That’s why one of my most important concerns is to do something about it, together with politics, to change these things.” She calls for a reversal of the burden of proof of damage to health in favor of those affected in the SED Victim Compensation Act.

Ministry of Social Affairs considers the right to compensation to be sufficient

This improvement in the SED Victim Protection Act (SED Unrechtsbereinigungsgesetz) had already been promised by the last federal government, but not implemented. This time the problem should be solved, according to the coalition parties when asked by Kontraste. The SPD parliamentary group said that when the law was amended in 2019, attempts were made to improve the situation for the victims of the SED dictatorship, which failed due to legal concerns. In the new coalition one sees good chances for an amendment.

The FDP parliamentary group refers to the explicit mention of the SED injustice in the government program. The Greens also declare that there is agreement in the coalition that access to help and services for victims of the SED dictatorship should be improved.

But the competent Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs said opposite contrasts, the right to compensation already provides for “a number of far-reaching simplifications of proof in favor of those affected.” The law on social compensation was comprehensively reformed in 2019, and “facilitation of the recognition of a health disorder as a consequence of damage” is also planned. Apparently, there is no need for action there. After decades of experience with authorities and courts, that sounds like mockery to Ralf Weber.

You can see posts on this and other topics today at 9:45 p.m. under “Contrasts” in the first.