Tears rise in front of a wooden doll’s sideboard, placed on the edge of the kitchen. It’s one of the only memories that Marie-Luise Tröbs keeps of her old house in Geisa, in the former communist East Germany.
The septuagenarian lived in this bucolic commune until she was 10 years old before her family was expelled by the authorities of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1961. Since German reunification in 1990, Marie-Luise Tröbs has been fighting to obtain a compensation from the Federal State.
“Now we finally see a glimmer of hope,” sighs the president of the association of forcibly displaced East Germans, who now lives in Erfurt, some 130 kilometers from her childhood town, in the center from the country.
Because the Social Democrats (SPD) in power want to modify the law of compensation for injustices committed by the East German Communist Party (SED), in particular to include the displaced “in the list of groups of victims”.
In 1952 and 1961, some 12,000 people living on the border of the two Germanys, including Mrs. Tröbs and her family, were forcibly relocated further east of the GDR. Barely a thousand are still alive today.
If the communist authorities justified this action by the establishment of a security perimeter at the border and the “hostile behavior” of certain inhabitants, the retiree denounces the regime’s “arbitrariness, violence and desire to intimidate” -German.
On the morning of October 3, 1961, on returning from church, Marie-Luise Tröbs was amazed to discover several trucks and armed police in front of her house.
“They drove us into the street in front of everyone, as if we were criminals,” she says. His family must then pack their bags in a few hours.
“Until his death, my father dwelled on what we could have done wrong,” sobs Mrs. Tröbs. Not to mention the reputation of “border criminals” that sticks to the family.
Further north, in Dömitz, the operation also left its mark. Inge Bennewitz, 82, speaks of “a scar that never healed”. From her office in Berlin, she recalls the unjustified expulsion of her parents when she was a student.
In their new house, “there were only two small rooms, no kitchen and the toilets were in the yard”, says Ms Bennewitz. “Suddenly we had nothing.”
His family is described as “incorrigible” by a local newspaper. “I never went downtown because I was afraid they would spit in my face,” shudders Inge Bennewitz, who heads a research group on forcibly displaced people.
“This trauma must be repaired by society, otherwise we, the victims, will not find peace”, claims Marie-Luise Tröbs.
She claims compensation of 20,000 euros: “10,000 euros for the injustice suffered in the GDR, 10,000 euros for the injustice suffered since 1990”.
Since 1992, two laws have been adopted and regularly amended to compensate SED victims. These include former prisoners, forced laborers and people separated from their children.
But reparations are still waiting for the forcibly displaced who also come up against administrative procedures.
“The events of 1952 and 1961 are now very old and the documents from the time are incomplete,” Evelyn Zupke, federal commissioner for victims of the East German communist dictatorship, told AFP.
In this position created in 2021, she works with deputies and associations to develop memorial laws.
“I repeat to the politicians that we really have to hurry,” assures Evelyn Zupke, who welcomes the SPD’s initiative and calls for a bill before the end of the year.
Displaced by force but also athletes forced into doping, former boarders in “rehabilitation” homes, children separated from their parents, Germany has worked a lot in recent years on the recognition of the victims of the communist dictatorship.
In her latest report published in mid-June, however, Commissioner Evelyn Zupke highlights how precarious many now find themselves, estimating that “about half of those affected by the injustice of the SED live on the edge of the poverty”.
26/06/2023 08:15:33 – Erfurt (Allemagne) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
