Eastern European Survivors File Class Action Against Auto Industry Giants
15 June 1999
Suit Targets Daimler Chrysler, BMW, Volkswagen for Wartime Use of Slave Labor
NEW YORK--A group of Eastern European World War II survivors today filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against 17 companies, claiming they illegally benefited from the use of Nazi-run slave labor drawn from Eastern European countries during the war.If approved as a class by the United States District Court of New York, the suit would represent potentially hundreds of thousands of survivors, as well as their heirs. This is believed to be the first suit to represent persons specifically from Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and the other countries of the former Soviet Union.
According to the suit filed by Seattle attorney Steve Berman, the German companies treated prisoners from eastern countries differently, including requiring them to wear badges with the word "Ostarbeiters," or "Easterner" on their lapels. "There is no way we can compare the misery and abject horror one group endured over another under the Nazis but the eastern prisoners were treated differently than the other slave laborers. They deserve to pursue vindication and redress as a group."
The named plaintiffs in the suit include Russian born Tatianna Zaitseva and Ukrainian borne Olena Ovechkina, both of who are now permanent United States residents. Zaitseva and her mother, a physician, were transported by the Nazis to Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau, a subsidiary of Daimler-Benz, where they were forced to work as slave-labors for nearly four years.
Ovechkina was transported from her home to an IG Farben plant in Bitterfeld, Germany where she was forced to work as slave labor under German SS guard for three years.
The suit names 17 defendants including Daimler Chrysler, BMW, Hoechst AG, Seimans and Volkswagen. The suit cites nine claims, including false imprisonment, conspiracy, unjust enrichment as well as assault and battery.