Furniture giant IKEA has agreed to pay 6 million euros ($6.5 million) towards a government fund compensating victims of forced labor under Germany\u2019s communist dictatorship, in a move campaigners hope will pressure other companies to follow. <\/p>\n
Political as well as criminal prisoners in Germany during the Cold War era were forced to build flatpack furniture for IKEA. The revelations came to light in Swedish and German media reports more than a decade ago, prompting the company to commission an independent investigation. <\/p>\n
Prisoners were producing furniture for IKEA, a global giant in the home furnishings industry, as recently as the 1970s and 1980s, the investigation conducted by auditors Ernst & Young found. IKEA representatives at the time were likely aware that political prisoners were being used to supplement labor, the report found. <\/p>\n
The former East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1949 until 1990, which installed a rigid communist state known as the German Democratic Republic, or GDR. Tens of thousands of its prisoners were forced into factory work, making it a key location for cheap labor that many Western companies are understood to have benefitted from. <\/p>\n
Many of the GDR\u2019s political prisoners would have been incarcerated for the simple \u201ccrime\u201d of opposing the one-party communist state. Opposition to the state was stamped out by East Germany\u2019s feared Stasi secret police, which spied on almost every aspect of people\u2019s daily lives. <\/p>\n
In a statement this week, IKEA Germany announced it would voluntarily put 6 million euros towards the new government fund established to provide compensation to victims of the East German dictatorship. <\/p>\n
After decades of campaigning by victim groups, Germany\u2019s ruling coalition government proposed in 2021 to set up the hardship fund. The German parliament will vote on its establishment in the coming weeks, although this step is seen as a mere formality. <\/p>\n
The IKEA statement adds that the payment is the result of years-long conversations between the company\u2019s German branch and the Union of Victims\u2019 Associations of Communist Dictatorship (UOGK) \u2014 an organization that describes itself as working to ensure those wrongly convicted in communist Germany receive justice in today\u2019s constitutional state. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have given our word to those affected that we will participate in providing support. We therefore welcome the implementation of the hardship fund and are pleased to be able to keep our promise.\u201d <\/p>\n
IKEA\u2019s landmark payment is the first of its kind. The move has been welcomed by organizations that advocate for victims. <\/p>\n
Dieter Dombrowski, the chairman of UOGK, described the development as \u201cgroundbreaking.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter it became known that the company was involved in forced prison labor, IKEA accepted our invitation to talk. Together we have taken the path of enlightenment and IKEA has met those affected on an equal footing.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that other companies will follow IKEA\u2019s example,\u201d Dombrowski added. <\/p>\n
According to UOGK, IKEA is one of many companies that benefitted from forced prison labor in communist Germany. Former UOKG chairman Rainer Wagner warned in 2012 that IKEA is \u201cjust the tip of the iceberg\u201d as he called for companies to compensate former prisoners who still bear the psychological scars of incarceration and forced labor. <\/p>\n
Evelyn Zupke, special representative for GDR victims in the German parliament, said: \u201cIKEA\u2019s pledge to support the hardship fund is an expression of a responsible approach to dealing with dark chapters in the company\u2019s own history. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t undo what prisoners had to suffer in the GDR\u2019s prisons, but we can treat them with respect today and support them.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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