Officials object reparations' route

VILNIUS - The Nazis sent hundreds of thousands of people to slave labor camps in Germany and Austria during World War II. Now Germany is ready to pay compensation to those still living.

In June, the German government officials stated that compensation for those living in Lithuania and Latvia forced into labor will be paid via Moscow. Compensation to Estonians will be paid via Minsk, the officials said. At the same time, Germany is going to pay other countries, including Poland and the Czech Republic, directly.

But Lithuanian officials protested against compensation paid to Lithuania through a third country.

Emanuelis Zingeris, a member of the Lithuanian Parliament and Lithuania's leading Jewish activist, said that Germany's decision is insulting to Lithuania.

Povilas Gylys, the opposition Democratic Labor Party MP and former foreign minister, said that Berlin's decision shows that "old geopolitical stereotypes are still alive in the West."

In June, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was visiting Vilnius, and Lithuanian Parliament Chairman Vytautas Landsbergis took the opportunity to express his disgust with the German decision on the compensation route. Landsbergis told Schroeder that Germany is rewriting history because West Germany, as well as the rest of democratic world, officially never recognized the legitimacy of incorporation of the Baltic countries into the Soviet Union.

Top German officials, who arrived with Schroeder, responded that compensation routes via Moscow were chosen because of old inertia in official Berlin. However, Zingeris accused the Lithuanian diplomats of polite weakness and a lack of professionalism in defending the interests of Lithuania in this case.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Algirdas Saudargas met his German counterpart Joschka Fischer in Hanover on Sept. 20 and told him that Lithuanians should get compensation directly, not via a third country. On the same day, Sept. 20, Oskaras Jusys, deputy foreign minister, held a press conference on this issue in Vilnius.

"Negotiations are going on with Germany. Our position is as follows: a person fills documents in Lithuania, money comes directly from Berlin to Vilnius, and compensation is paid here," Jusys said.

He said that there is some progress in this issue but refused to mention details of the achievements of negotiations between Vilnius and Berlin.

It seems, he implied, that Austrian officials have a better knowledge of European geography than their German colleagues do.

"Negotiations are ongoing with Austria too. Vienna tends to pay directly to former slave workers in Lithuania," said Petras Zapolskas, director of the Information and Culture Department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The Nazis forcibly sent about 50,000 Lithuanians to Germany and some 2,000 to Austria for slave labor there.

"Some 10,000 people have already registered. Only about 100 of them were sent to Austria, the rest to Germany. These former modern slaves from Lithuania are people of all ethnic backgrounds," said Dalia Kuodyte, director general of the Genocide and Resistance Research Center.

She added that compensation payments from Germany and Austria are expected next year.