BERLIN — Admitting it used forced labor during World War II, Germany’s Protestant Evangelical Church promised July 12 to contribute to a newly established reparations fund for survivors of Nazi atrocities.
“This was complicity in a regime based on force and removed from the rule of law,” church council president Manfred Kock declared in a statement. “We recognize this guilt.”
The church’s statement came amid historical research showing church parishes in World War II Berlin established a forced labor camp and forced people, mostly from Eastern and Central Europe, to work as gravediggers and in similar positions, Reuters news agency reported.
The Roman Catholic Church may also have employed forced laborers, a Catholic Church spokesman said, though it has no immediate plans to give money to Germany’s compensation fund.
One Berlin church official said that in 1943 two Catholic and 26 Protestant church parishes founded a forced labor camp in Berlin that used about 100 workers from Russia and east Europe.
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