The German branch of IKEA has pledged millions to compensate victims of the former Communist East German regime, who were forced to make furniture components in the GDR.
East Germany often forced prisoners to work — at sites like this women’s prison in Hoheneck — and some of the products were distributed across the Iron
Germany’s Bundestag parliament and IKEA Deutschland on Tuesday announced that the furniture colossus would contribute €6 million (roughly $6.5 million) to a new German government fund designed to compensate victims of the former East German dictatorship.
The parliament’s special representative for helping victims of the former East Germany (or GDR, for “German Democratic Republic”), Evelyn Zupke, said on Tuesday that the company had confirmed its intention to pay into the mechanism. The fund has yet to be approved by the German parliament, but this is seen as a formality.
“For me IKEA’s pledge to support the hardship fund is an expression of a conscientious approach also to darker chapters of the company history,” Zupke said. “We can’t undo what prisoners had to suffer in GDR prisons. But we can offer them respect today and support them if they face particular hardships. IKEA has decided to take precisely this path and I am distinctly grateful.”
IKEA’s contribution is voluntary, there is no legal obligation for it to act in this case.
