to the judgement of the Italian Court of Justice to Nazi-forced labourers

The International federation of the Resistance fighters (FIR) – Association of anti-fascists, the international umbrella organization of federations of former resistance fighters, partisans, deported and interned and victims of the fascist crimes and anti-fascists of today's generations welcomes expressly the recent decision of the highest Italian of Court of Justice over the legal standard of the claims for damages of Nazi-forced labourers.

The German Federal Government, that aimed at this process, must recognize now that exclusion of Greek and Italian Nazi-victims from the compensation is illegitimate. At the same time the court secured the material legal claim of the pursued ones by judicial mortgages on German facilities.

This judgement is not only a moral victory for all pursued ones of the Nazi regime, it creates also for all involved right clarity. Nazi crimes - including the forced labour of deported and prisoners of war - must be avenged. The forced labourer compensation foundation "memory - responsibility - future" must take up now its work for the compensation of these groups of victims again.

The FIR thanks all involved ones, in particular the anti-fascist federations and initiatives to the historical and legal processing of the crimes in Italy and Greece, which argued in the past years with large persistence and commitment for the moral and legal acknowledgment of the victims of fascism. FIR congratulates the federations of the survivors and their descendants, their political and legal representatives to this success.

Now the FIR expects a brisk conversion of the obligations of the German Federal Government opposite to the survivors and the members due to the judgement. Each further attempt to play on time by legal delaying tactics would be a mockery of the victims and an ignoring of the European right standard, which showed up in the Italian judgement.

Dr. Ulrich Schneider
General secretary FIR