In 1960, the German War Graves Commission established a cemetery at the Arnsburg abbey in which German soldiers, members of the SS, and foreign prisoners of war and forced laborers were buried together. The latter group included the remains of the 87 victims of the mass murder at Hirzenhain. Even though members of the commission were aware of their names and the circumstances surrounding their death, the victims were buried as “unknown war dead.”

The Ukrainian forced laborer Alexandra Tubicha was killed in the final days of the war in Wippenbach (Hessen). The village residents at first hid her body in various locations and then buried her in the village cemetery. Later Alexandra Tubicha’s grave was recorded as “missing.” Today nothing in the village commemorates her fate.

In the 1970s, however, the idea that the problem had been solved once and for all began to provoke protest. Frequently it was localinitiatives which investigated specific local histories and demanded that assistance be given to those former forced laborers still living.

Growing knowledge about the crimes which had been committed went hand in hand with public pressure to think about compensation.

“The manner in which we rendered compensation often manifested the opposite of what compensation is supposed to be: [We] turned the victims of persecution into beggars, people who missed deadlines, people unworthy of trust, and finally, people unworthy of compensation.”

Dörte von Westernhagen, writer and journalist, in Die Zeit, 5 October 2025