Evidence of Forced Labour

Together with its partners the Federal Archives and the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross, the Federal Association launched the “evidence assistance” project to support forced labourers who could not present evidence of their forced labour. In combining their archives, the cooperating partners aimed primarily at assisting those affected in obtaining the missing documents as quickly as possible.

In order to do so, the requests of former forced labourers were first compared to the 47 million-entry name index of the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross. If their names were not found in that database, the requests were sent to the Federal Association in Cologne that served as joint archives head office. From here, the requests were transmitted to regional and local archives as well as large company archives such as Mannesmann, Krupp or Degussa. This comprehensive project was funded by the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ). Joining the archives helped more than 43 000 forced labourers obtain evidence for forced labour and thus financial compensation.