No money in the 2027 draft

The German federal government's draft budget for 2027 contains no funds for Polish victims of Nazi occupation who are still alive, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), whose Warsaw correspondent Stefan Locke wrote about it on Wednesday, 14 October. Members of the Bundestag who support such aid told the paper that changes before the budget is finally adopted are unlikely. The German government said in 2025 that it would examine the possibility of support, and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told Gazeta Wyborcza at the turn of September and October that the federal government would analyse ways to help survivors. A similar pledge to examine the matter was made a year earlier. Berlin continues to treat reparations as legally and politically closed, while the requested aid is framed as humanitarian rather than compensation.

A shrinking group of survivors

Jakub Deka, chairman of the Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation (Fundacja Polsko-Niemieckie Pojednanie), told FAZ that about 50,000 survivors of the German occupation were alive at the end of 2025, and just over 40,000 in October 2026. Philippa Fritz, a Die Welt correspondent, estimated that benefits or pension supplements could reach between 30,000 and 50,000 people, including former concentration camp and ghetto prisoners, forced labourers and insurgents. For these elderly people, Deka said, the issue is not a legal dispute but daily survival.

Today it is not about claims. These people see us as an aid organization, because it is hard for them to live on low pensions.

Deka stressed that the sought support is humanitarian aid. He pointed to forced labour as one cause of present poverty, since many people could not attend school, study or learn a trade. With each month of delay, fewer of these people will be alive to receive help.

Past payments

In 1990, after reunification, the German government transferred a one-off 500 million marks to Poland as a gesture towards the victims. According to FAZ, each of the 800,000 victims received several hundred marks, and former camp prisoners received higher payments than forced labourers. In 2000, about half a million Poles received benefits from the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation, and recipients had to give up further claims. Former camp prisoners received 15,000 marks, forced labourers in industry 4,400 marks and agricultural forced labourers 2,200 marks.

What the foundation can offer

The Polish-German Reconciliation Foundation holds an archive with information on all Polish victims of the Nazi war and occupation, but its funds are small. It sometimes receives donations, including from Germany, but does not seek them actively. It can help only selected people, and the main criteria are the level of pension and health. Those with incomes up to 3,000 zloty a month who are also in poor health may receive a one-off payment of about 1,500 zloty. Locke cited a letter from a 94-year-old widow who pays rent, food and medicine from a pension of 2,900 zloty and depends on a carer, and who applied to the foundation as a former forced labourer.

Warsaw's fallback

Donald Tusk urged a quick German decision at the Polish-German intergovernmental consultations in December 2025. He said the Polish government would otherwise consider helping the victims from its own funds. Early in 2026 a figure of 10,000 zloty a year per person was mentioned, but according to Locke nothing came of it.