Bank to charge German slaves for pension payments

Antipodean Andy · Aug 13, 2008

Nazi work camp survivors face bank battle - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Having survived Hitler and World War II, a group of elderly Polish people in Adelaide now find themselves caught up in the war on terrorism.

They are paid a pension by the German Government for their suffering during the war, but the Commonwealth Bank has written to them saying it needs to charge them a fee on that money to comply with new anti-terrorism and money laundering laws.

Maria Poblocki was a 15-year-old Polish girl when the Nazis dragged her off to Germany.

"Because otherwise they catch you anyway and put you in jail before they take you to Germany," she said.

She was one of thousands of people put to work in German factories and farms during the war.

Josef Tylkowski's parents were threatened with deportation to a concentration camp if they didn't register him for work. So at the age of 13-and-a-half he registered himself.

"My mother say to me, 'Son you are brave'. I said 'Yes Mama, I do this only for you'," he said.

Officially the workers were meant to be paid. In practise few were, making them slaves in all but name. The pair came from different parts of Poland and were sent to farms in different parts of Germany.

"There's a policeman, the policeman say that I don't working hard enough, that I am lazy bugger. And I got a really bashing," Mr Tylkowski said.

Jola Kozak is an aged care worker for the Polish community and says many people in their 80s share this story.

"They're the people that were forced into labour, either on farms or in factories during the war. And if they were there for three to five years they are entitled to a German pension," she said.

But now that German pension has landed these elderly people in the middle of a modern war.

Two weeks ago Mr Tylkowski and Mrs Poblocki received letters from the Commonwealth Bank, telling them that due to new terrorist funding and anti-money laundering laws, they'd be charged a $3.50 monthly processing fee on their German pensions.

Ms Kozak says she knows of 20 people who have received the same letter from the bank.

"What 85-year-olds or 90-year-olds who were forced into labour in Germany have to do with terrorism I have no idea," she said.

And neither does Jude McCulloch, who was a criminologist at Monash University. She says anti-money laundering laws were introduced by the Howard government in 2006, following anti-terrorism financing laws in 2002.

And she believes this case raises questions about their effectiveness.

"The fact that we're seeing pensioners who are clearly not involved in terrorist financing in any way, receiving pensions from governments, paying the costs that are apparently being passed on by the banks, is an example of unintended consequence," she said.

The Commonwealth Bank has declined to be interviewed, but has told AM, it has absorbed German pension processing costs for years, and the costs of this new legislation make that unsustainable.
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Antipodean Andy · Aug 13, 2008

As an aside, the bank in question just posted a A$4.7 billion profit, an increase of 7%. The number of German pensions being processed must be horrendous to be unable to wear the cost of this fee...

spidge · Aug 13, 2008

Which Bank?

Kyt · Aug 13, 2008

Just goes to show how shoddily most of these "anti-terror" measures were introduced - in most cases without taking into consideration the actual wider implications, without the measures actually making much difference against the terror networks.

So the bank makes a charge due to the law - would that actually stop the terrorists? "oh no, we can't blow up a building because they've taken a tenner out of our funds!" Pathetic.

Antipodean Andy · Aug 13, 2008

Which Bank?
Click to expand...

:lol:

That's the slogan for the bank in question, you non-Aussie types!

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Bank to charge German slaves for pension payments

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