More than 5000 Saxony-Anhalters receive a victim's pension because they were illegally imprisoned by the SED regime.
A new regulation two years ago once again resulted in more applications.
It should be more, says the country's processing officer.
Halle - 30 years after the end of the GDR, hundreds of people in Saxony-Anhalt have applied for rehabilitation and compensation for wrongly suffered imprisonment. Since a new regulation came into force around two years ago, the state administration office has received more than 700 applications, said a spokeswoman in Halle when asked. Since November 2019, there has also been a victim pension for women and men who were imprisoned for 90 days, previously it had to be at least 180 days. 200 people applied because they had to serve this length of imprisonment. More than 180 of the applications are approved.
The allowance for those persecuted by the GDR regime rose from 300 to 330 euros per month with the new regulation. According to the State Administration Office, the increased victim's pension was paid out to 4,946 people as of June 30th, 170 beneficiaries would have received a reduced victim's pension because of an income allowance.
Saxony-Anhalt's processing officer, Birgit Neumann-Becker, received many citizens' inquiries about the new regulation of criminal rehabilitation.
"I am pleased that the applications are being made, but actually a lot more people could or should take advantage of this opportunity," said Neumann-Becker of the German Press Agency.
"In our nationwide, monthly external consultation hours in every district, we mostly have visitors who cannot find the way to the application forms on their own, or who need help filling them out." .
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“We interpret the relatively small number of applicants for imprisonment periods of 90 to less than 180 days to mean that this group of people will only increasingly submit their applications in the future, because the relatively shorter imprisonment periods were more a feature of the late GDR and those affected are therefore still predominantly are in working life and postpone their personal reassessment towards retirement, ”explained Neumann-Becker.
dpa