Nazi Labor Compensation Agreement

Negotiators agreed Thursday on how to allocate the money from a $5 billion fund to compensate Nazi-era slave and forced laborers, resolving the last major point of contention after months of negotiations.

"There is an agreement in principle on the numbers and the allocations," said Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Jewish Claims Conference.

All negotiators were to meet in a plenary session to approve the deal, he said.

The agreement would allocate $4 billion for compensating slave and forced labor victims and another $500 million to cover claims for bank accounts and insurance policies stolen by the Nazis.

Another $350 million will be used for a foundation that will sponsor research and projects around the theme of Nazi labor.

Since all sides agreed in December on the fund's amount, negotiators had been wrangling over how to divide the money among the various groups to be covered.

Eastern European countries had been pushing to get the most money possible to cover victims of the Nazis' labor practices, while German industry insisted the foundation for future projects was an integral part of the effort. Jewish groups had wanted to make sure an appropriate amount was allocated for the other bank and insurance claims.

Under the deal, slave laborers -- those who were put to work in concentration camps and expected to die doing their job -- would receive up to $7,500 each. Forced laborers, who worked in factories outside camps, would get up to $2,500 each.

Taylor said there still remained technical questions to be resolved in the German legislation that creates the fund, which government officials said they hoped to pass before parliament's summer break. Taylor declined to speculate on when payments might actually begin to victims.

On Wednesday, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Cabinet approved a bill to set up the fund, which is to be financed in equal parts by the government and German industry.

Estimates about how many people could benefit from the fund range from 800,000 to 2.3 million. Most are non-Jews from Eastern Europe who had been left out of previous compensation efforts because they were behind the Iron Curtain.

Germany has paid $60 billion under other compensation for Nazi-era wrongs since World War II.