Polish demand
January 12, 2010
Poland's main association for former concentration camp inmates is calling on Deutsche Bahn to offer financial compensation to former prisoners.
The call comes as Deutsche Bahn makes moves to operate train services in Poland.
"Deutsche Bahn wants to profit in our country," said Stanislaw Zalewski, head of the Polish Association of Former Political Prisoners of Hitler's Prisons and Concentration Camps. "We want them to hand over a sum for humanitarian aid for former prisoners and forced laborers."
Payments for necessities
Rather than wanting excessive compensation payouts, he said, many of the group's 7,000 remaining members needed money to pay for health care and heating costs.
"Medical care and drugs cost a lot in Poland, and the majority of our members aren't well off," said Zalewski.
Profits made during war
The German organization Train of Commemoration, which is dedicated to remembering victims of Nazi deportations, estimates that Deutsche Bahn's wartime predecessor Deutsche Reichsbahn made a sum worth at least 445 million euros ($645 million) in today's money by transporting detainees.
Germany's state-controlled Deutsche Bahn recently lodged an application with Polish authorities to operate passenger services in Poland.
Under a planned partnership between Deutsche Bahn and the Polish state rail company PKP Intercity, trains will soon run from Berlin to the Polish bathing resort town of Kolobrzeg. The companies already cooperate on international intercity routes.
rc/dpa/AFP/KNA
Editor: Michael Lawton