VW To Be Sued Over WWII Labor

[Jim Griffin <JGriff@pobox.com>]

VW To Be Sued Over WWII Labor 

August 31, 1998 2:34 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) _ Elly Gross was 15 when she arrived at the Auschwitz
concentration camp, where most who entered were bound to die in the gas
chambers like her mother and 5-year-old brother. 

Although she survived because she was chosen to work as a slave laborer for
German automaker Volkswagen, Mrs. Gross, now 69, still has breathing
troubles from inhaling paint at the camp while working 12-hour days with no
pay. 

A class-action lawsuit expected to be filed today in federal court in
Newark, N.J., on behalf of Mrs. Gross and thousands like her demands
compensation for the work of slave laborers, alleging that Volkswagen not
only exploited them but worked with the Nazis to ensure their steady supply. 

``Auschwitz was the hell,'' Mrs. Gross said at a news conference this
morning. ``The factory where I worked just was the skirt of the hell.'' 

In a similar action, attorney Ed Fagan filed a federal lawsuit Sunday in
New York City against several German and Austrian companies _ including
Volkswagen _ over use of slave labor. Mel Weiss, the attorney in the
lawsuit including Mrs. Gross, said today that despite the timing, the
lawsuits are not connected. 

``Nobody can give me back my mother and brother. But they can make right
what they did to me,'' Mrs. Gross, of New York City, said Sunday. 

The lawsuits follow this month's $1.25 billion agreement by Swiss banks to
settle claims by Holocaust survivors who weren't allowed to collect their
assets after World War II. That case was negotiated in part by Fagan and
attorney Mel Weiss, who is representing the class-action lawsuit. 

Historians believe more than 7 million people were coerced to work in
Germany under Adolf Hitler's regime, but the government and German
companies have turned down survivors' demands for back wages. 

In July, Volkswagen said it would establish a fund to pay back wages.
Details are to be decided at a meeting Sept. 11, VW chief Ferdinand Piech
said today. Weiss, however, has already said the company's proposal was not
acceptable. 

``The industrial companies of Germany played an integral role in the
Holocaust,'' Fagan said. ``They masterminded and implemented with the Nazi
regime a ... conspiracy to purposely enslave and exploit Holocaust victims
and to profit from the Holocaust.'' 

Some familiar names are among the companies accused in Fagan's lawsuit:
Siemens, Krupp, Daimler-Benz, Audi, Wurttembergische Metall Warenfabrik,
Heinkel, Eicon Technology, BMW and Leica Camera. 

``Germany has apologized for the Holocaust. This lawsuit is a test of
whether it will put justice where its mouth is,'' Weiss said. 

In April 1944, Mrs. Gross, her mother and brother were loaded on a railroad
boxcar from their native Romania for a six-day journey to Auschwitz. 

``When we arrived, people were screaming. Dogs were barking. Everybody was
yelling,'' she said. 

She was told the family would be reunited in several days. It never
happened. After several months she was shipped to a Volkswagen factory near
Hannover, Germany, were she spent nearly a year painting machinery parts. 

``You have to understand, after what I had been through at Auschwitz _
sleeping in the mud, eating sand to fill my belly, watching people die _
the factory was like heaven. We had food and blankets,'' she said. 

But the 12-hour work days under the supervision of Nazi guards, who beat
those who made a mistake, took its toll on her health. 

``I coughed up the paint,'' said Gross, a retired bookkeeper who came to
the United States in 1966. 

In the waning days of the war, the factory workers were shipped to another
concentration camp, where she was liberated by American soldiers. When she
returned to Romania, she found strangers living in her home and learned
that her family was dead. 
       
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      Jim Griffin
JGriff@pobox.com
--------------------------