Protestors urge Farben to dissolve

Georg Brau, a spokesman for the Coalition Against IG Farben, questioned the sincerity of the company's recently announced plans for dissolution.

"We suspect that they have proposed a foundation for Holocaust victims in order to delay the company's liquidation," Brau said.

He also criticized the proposal for the foundation, which was expected to be on the agenda at the firm's annual meeting set for late this week.

In addition to producing the Zyklon B gas, the pre-World War II chemical company built a plant on the outskirts of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to produce artificial rubber and synthetic gasoline. The plant operated largely with slave laborers from Auschwitz.

An estimated 25,000 to 30,000 workers, most of them Jewish, died as a result of the plant's inhumane working conditions.

Earlier this week, three former Jewish slave laborers for IG Farben filed a lawsuit in a Frankfurt court demanding back pay as well as damages for their involuntary labor during the war. The Polish-born Israelis are seeking $5,600 each in damages and $20,670 to $33,520 for back wages, based on the duration of their forced labor.

The Allies broke up the company into smaller units after the war. But IG Farben claimed it needed a skeleton staff to wrap up company business, which is still operating five decades later.

Axel Koehler-Schnura, a spokesman for "Never Again!," a German group fighting for compensation for Holocaust victims, sharply criticized the city of Frankfurt for providing space for the shareholders' meeting. The meeting has been postponed and rescheduled several times due to continued threats of picketing.