Germany to make payouts to ghetto workers

BERLIN, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- About 50,000 people who worked for minimal wages in Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany are to receive one-time compensation payments.

The German government announced Wednesday that the money will go to survivors of the Holocaust who have not received compensation under a previous effort aimed at slave laborers, Deutsche Welle reported. The payments will be about $2,800.

"The payment agreed today is not compensation for being interned in ghettos,” said Ulrich Wilhelm, a government spokesman. “It is a humanitarian gesture."

The German Finance Ministry and Israeli Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan negotiated the payout in several weeks of discussions.