Paying for the Past: The Struggle Over Reparations for Surviving Victims of the Nazi Terror

A reparations process intended to benefit the victims of atrocities can end up harming the survivors it was intended to benefit. That's one of the main themes to emerge from this dense and polemical book about reparations in post-WWII West Germany, a book that created an uproar when it was published a decade ago in German. The author, the medical director of the Berlin-based Center for the Treatment of Torture Victims, demonstrates that the path toward those reparations was torturous and controversial. He shows how, despite pressure from the world Jewish community and Israel, the odds were stacked against the survivors receiving decent compensation. For example, some of the active decision makers in the reparations process had benefited from the Nazi regime; many doctors who made reparation recommendations failed to associate survivors' psychological problems with their wartime experiences; and the German public at large believed it had been victimized. It's easy to get lost in all of Pross's legal and personal details, and, more important, the author might have presented a more balanced account--after all, the reparations process he disparages still resulted in laws and agreements that distributed a considerable amount of money to victims. But as the international community continues to struggle with the issue of reparations, this ably translated book serves as a cautionary tale. (July)