GERMAN ORPHANS exploited and abused in post-war industrial schools have rejected as a “shameful humiliation” an offer of state compensation one tenth of their original demand.
A government panel announced yesterday a €120 million fund to compensate the estimated 30,000 children abused in homes from 1949 to 1975.
These institutions, two-thirds of them run by religious orders, were home to a total of 800,000 children, mostly wartime orphans and the children of single mothers.
“In this institutional childcare there were many places of evil, that’s why it was a blessing to reach an agreement based on collective responsibility,” said Antje Vollmer, a Green Party politician and chairwoman of the panel.
She described the deal as “the best that was humanly possible” after two years of submissions from former orphanage managers and residents.
But an association representing the institutionalised children, which called for one-off payments of €50,000 per victim or a monthly pension of €300, has rejected yesterday’s offer as a “cheap fob-off”.
“We’ve worked out that this means up to €5,000 per person, a disgrace for this country,” said Monika Günther, spokesperson for the Association of Former Institution Children (VeH), announcing a legal challenge to the deal.
Her organisation has campaigned for recognition for the systemic child abuse in orphanages, from beatings and bullying to prolonged starvation.
The VeH called for one-off payments to compensate members for abuse which still hangs over them as adults. “If they said, ‘I’m going to beat you to death’, then we believed them because we could see children lying around unconscious,” said Ms Günther.
The fund is divided into two parts, with €100 million to cover the cost of therapy for former institutionalised children and a €20 million pension top-up fund.
The fund allows discretionary payments too, such as rental allowance for victims who do not want to return to a home in old age. Germany’s state governments and Christian churches will share the cost.
“I’m relieved that a solution was found,” said Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops’ Conference. “From the bottom of my heart I ask for forgiveness from the victims.” The deal has divided the VeH and many members picketed yesterday’s press conference in Berlin.
“This is a farce, we have to prove that we experienced injustice,” said Hannelore Abraham (65), who entered an orphanage aged eight. “From Ms Vollmer I expected more humanity.”