Although forced labor was pervasive and affected millions, its official recognition after World War II as an NS injustice was by no means a given. Guided by one family’s search for clues, this podcast tells the story behind this mass crime and how it was addressed.
Twenty-five years ago, the EVZ Foundation was established, enabling former forced laborers to apply for compensation. But what had happened up to that point? And what impact did that historic decision have on those affected? Daniel Christensen, actor and podcast host, explores these questions through the biography of his Czech grandfather, Ludvik Jirus, who as a young man was forced to work for the National Socialist occupiers of Prague. Drawing on Jirus’s firsthand accounts, reports from other eyewitnesses, and conversations with people accompanying the founding process, Christensen unpacks the story behind the EVZ Foundation. In four episodes, the podcast invites listeners to reflect—on moving personal fates, political diplomacy, and the struggle to achieve official acknowledgment of a country’s past injustice.
Listen to the four episodes (in German) on our YouTube channel, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are available.
Podcast host: Daniel Christensen
Idea and project management: Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ Foundation)
Conceptualization, research, interviews, and text: Vera Teichmann, speak low, Berlin
Production: speak low, Berlin
A photo of Daniel Christensen looking at a manuscript.
© Martin Keil
Daniel Christensen, holding up a photo of his grandfather for the camera.
© Martin Keil
© Bundesregierung B 145 Bild-00161018 / Engelbert Reineke
Applicants from the Polish partner organization, the “Polish-German Reconciliation” Foundation in Warsaw.
© Stiftung „Polnisch-Deutsche Aussöhnung“, Warschau
Looking back, the creation of the EVZ Foundation is often viewed as a long-overdue compromise that left none of the parties completely satisfied. Which demands went unfulfilled—and why was this compromise still meaningful? What became of those who were excluded from the legislation that gave rise to the foundation? And what is the mission of the EVZ Foundation today, long after the compensation payments have ended?
In the fourth episode of “Value & Dignity,” podcast host Daniel Christensen examines the repercussions of these historic negotiations. With individuals from the EVZ Foundation and the business community as well as persons directly affected, he discusses the varying success of the payment programs in reaching different victim groups—and looks at who was left behind. The episode also considers the deeper significance of financial and symbolic recognition for those affected. Additionally, Katrin Kowark offers a view into the foundation’s work today and its support for projects that continue to confront National Socialist injustices.
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The creation of the EVZ Foundation in 2000 cleared the way for compensation payments to surviving forced laborers from the NS period. But how could the foundation reach more than a million elderly people who were scattered around the world? And why did podcast host Daniel Christensen’s grandfather, Ludvik Jirus, never receive any compensation, even though he too had been forced to work under the NS regime?
The third episode of “Value & Dignity” takes listeners inside the complex payment process in Central and Eastern Europe. The historians Martin Bock and Gabriele Freitag, who coordinated the German side of the process, share their insights, while Jakub Deka and Darina Sedláčková recount how they reached survivors in Poland and Czechia—and why building trust was essential in their work with the German foundation. This episode also explores the obstacles and bureaucratic hurdles that accompanied the payout process, showing how even after the EVZ Foundation’s creation, questions of justice, recognition, and dignity had to be renegotiated time and again.
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Where is the line between the symbolic recognition of suffering and financial compensation? How can agreement be achieved when the interests of the parties involved seem irreconcilable? And why was the social climate of the 1990s decisive for the creation of the EVZ Foundation?
In the second episode of “Value & Dignity,” podcast host Daniel Christensen retraces the long and difficult road that led to the compensation payments made in 2000 to victims of NS forced labor. He highlights the milestones along the way—and how the denial of guilt and the avoidance of responsibility nearly derailed the process. Featured voices include the former Ukrainian forced laborer Inessa Mirtschewskaja, the historian Constantin Goschler, the former U.S. Special Envoy Stuart E. Eizenstat, and Michael Jansen and Jörg Freiherr Frank von Fürstenwerth, who represented the foundation initiative of the German industry during the negotiations.
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The millions of people deported from occupied territories to perform forced labor were anything but invisible in Germany under National Socialism. But how did this exploitative system that sustained the German war economy function? How did this inhumane ideology shape the living conditions of those who were subjected to it? And how did their experience as forced laborers under the NS regime define the further course of their personal lives?
In this first episode, we explore the history of compulsory labor under NS rule as a societal crime. Podcast host Daniel Christensen shares the moving story of his Czech grandfather, Ludvik Jirus, who was forced to work for a German company in 1944, at the age of 18. The episode also traces the fate of former Polish forced laborer Alicja Kubecka. The historians Christine Glauning and Mark Spoerer provide factual historical context, helping to frame these memories within the broader complex of issues around NS forced labor and its reappraisal.
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