Memorial segment of the Berlin Wall along Bernauer Strasse at sunset. The wall separated east and west Berlin prior to reunification of Germany in 1990. Picture: 123RF/gekaskrPeople who as children were forced into state care by the former communist East German regime will more easily be able to obtain compensation, Berlin said on Wednesday, as it sought to lift barriers to claims for payment.
“This is an important signal, particularly coming in this year which is the 30th anniversary of the peaceful revolution” that brought the end of the communist regime, said the government. Some 135,000 of them were sent to special institutions commonly dubbed “kid’s prisons” that carried out re-education to force them to fall in line with the socialist ideology.
Germany first offered former victims compensation in 2012, granting them a “victim-pension” of about €300 euros a month.
The benefactors of apartheid still complaining about transformation while other countries have reparations.