NEW YORK — Volkswagen’s decision to establish a fund for Jewish slave laborers ups the ante on other German companies to make similar payments.
Just three weeks after the German car company rejected demands to compensate 30 Jewish slave laborers who had worked for the company during World War II, the auto manufacturer agreed this week to set up a fund.
According to a history financed by the company two years ago, Volkswagen employed 15,000 slave workers to help in the German war effort.
Hailing the move as a “bold step” and a “breath of fresh air,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said, “We now hold up VW as a corporate leader” in making amends to slave laborers.
Klaus von Muenchhausen, the lawyer who had threatened a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the 30 laborers, all of whom were employed by the firm as teenagers and now live in Israel, said he would pursue similar action against Varta, a battery company, and Hochtief, a construction company. Whether these or other companies would follow VW’s lead is unclear.
Volkswagen said it will provide details about the fund in September. While it was unclear how much Volkswagen would pay, von Muenchhausen was quoted as saying his clients would seek $2,200 for each month worked.
Volkswagen gave no indication of why it reversed course. A company statement said the decision was “in recognition of its historical and moral obligations” to the slave laborers.