********************************
ANNA SNOPCZYK,
individually and on behalf
of all others similarly situated,
Plaintiffs,

v.

VOLKSWAGEN AG,
Defendant.
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Civil Action No.
CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT
AND JURY DEMAND

As alleged more fully below, defendant's acts of intentional neglect and maltreatment were motivated by the children?s Polish and Russian ethnicity, which defendant believed made the children racially inferior and therefore disposable. Under international law, defendant's actions constitute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Actions for redress of these crimes are not subject to any statute of limitation pursuant to the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitation to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. In addition, the statute of limitations for these actions was tolled by the London Debt Settlement Agreement of 1953, until the completion of the reparations phase of the Second World War. With the signing of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany, however, the reparations phase of the Second World War has been deemed to have ended, permitting plaintiff to seek judicial relief for Volkswagen's acts of genocide. Plaintiff seeks compensatory and punitive damages for herself and all others similarly situated for defendant's intentional and negligent acts which resulted in the death of her child.

4. Anna and the other Volkswagen workers received very little food, and were constantly in a state of hunger. The Polish workers at Volkswagen who spoke German would remove the "P" they were forced to wear on their clothing to signify their Polish ethnicity, and sneak into town to purchase what food they could with the little Volkswagen paid them for their labor. In 1942, after Anna developed a severe case of eczema over her entire body from working with the glue, she was transferred to work for a German farmer near the Volkswagen factory. See Confirmation (Bestatigung) of Residency Registration of Anna Kubiak, attached hereto as Exhibit B.

5. While working on the farm, Anna met and fell in love with a Polish man who worked on a neighboring farm. The two eventually were engaged to be married. Anna became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy on February 11, 1945. See Birth Certificate (Geburtsurkunde) of Jozef Kubiak, attached hereto as Exhibit C. She named the child Jozef Kubiak, and with the assistance of a friend, she baptized Jozef herself. For two weeks after giving birth, Anna tried to care for her child while working at the farm, but she could only get away from work twice a day to feed and change him - otherwise, the baby was left alone. The child was sent to the local Home for Foreign Children, or "Kinderheim," in Ruhen, which Volkswagen operated, where she believed he would receive appropriate care. While Jozef was at the Kinderheim, Anna was only able to visit him once or twice a week, at most. The Kinderheim was infested with bugs and vermin, and there was only one nurse to care for twenty infants. The medical staff did nothing to improve the conditions of the Kinderheim or the children's health. The few times she was able to visit Jozef, she poured disinfectant on the floor around his bed to try to keep the bugs and vermin away from him.

6. Jozef Kubiak died in the Volkswagen Kinderheim at the age of two months. The wife of the farmer for whom Anna worked learned of the child?s death by telephone and told Anna. No one informed Anna what caused Jozef's death, although she learned that he had a "green tummy" when he died. Anna had to pay to have her child buried. Volkswagen never accounted to Anna for the loss of her child.

7. Plaintiff Snopczyk brings this action on her own behalf, and, pursuant to Rule 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, on behalf of a class of all persons similarly situated, namely the parents of those children who died between 1943 and 1945 in Volkswagen's baby nursery as a result of genocide (the "Class").

8. Defendant Volkswagen AG ("Volkswagen") is a German corporation formed on May 28, 1937, to produce automobiles. At the time of its formation, and at all times relevant to the allegations in this Complaint, it was known as Volkswagenwerks Co. Inc. In the early 1940s at its factory in Wolfsburg, Volkswagen employed medical personnel and others to staff a "Kinderheim" established to care for the infant children of Polish and Russian forced laborers working at the factory and at local farms. During 1943 to 1945, when approximately 350 to 400 Polish and Russian children died in Volkswagen's Kinderheim, Volkswagen was solely responsible for the care and well-being of those children.(2) Allied Death List (Exhibit A).

Volkswagen built a factory near Fallersleben for the mass production of the "people's car" in 1938, and Hitler attended the cornerstone laying ceremony. A town was built near the factory and named "the town of the Strength through Joy car," or "KdF Stadt," now known as Wolfsburg. Hitler later reviewed blueprints for the Volkswagen "Beetle" and made design suggestions, some of which remained in the car's final design. In 1939, Hitler visited the KdF Stadt plant again to inspect two models of the Volkswagen cars.

10. From its incorporation in 1937, Volkswagen encountered problems recruiting a voluntary workforce. Faced with wartime labor shortages, Volkswagen actively solicited the use of forced labor supplied by the Nazi Regime. See Letter from Adolf Hitler to Prof. Dr. Porsche, et al., of 1/11/42 (endorsing Dr. Porsche's "proposal . . . to issue the workforce from the concentration camp"), attached hereto as Exhibit D.

11. According to Nazi ideology, Adolf Hitler foresaw the establishment of a "German master race" and a class of subhuman servants to that race. Hitler commented in the 1930s that, "Human culture cannot be developed any further without creating a certain modern form of bondage - or, if you like, of slavery." (4) Ulrich Herbert, Hitler?s Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labor in Germany under the Third Reich 45 (William Templer, trans., 1997).

Pursuant to that ideology and Germany's war needs, the Nazis forcibly deported approximately 7,000,000 people to Germany from their homes in occupied territories to work in support of the German war effort. From the moment of their abduction, these forced laborers were subject to all the tortures, brutality, humiliation, insult, maltreatment and suffering the human mind can imagine.

12. Volkswagen began using forced laborers in its factories as early as June 1940. By 1944, tens of thousands of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Danish, Dutch and Belgian citizens; Russian, French and Italian prisoners of war; and Jewish concentration camp prisoners were being used as forced laborers at Volkswagen plants throughout Europe. At times, 70% of Volkswagen's wartime workforce was made up of foreign forced laborers, prisoners of war, and concentration camp inmates. Those laborers whom the Germans considered to be "racially inferior" worked under utterly barbarous conditions. (5) Siegfried, supra, at 45.

13. It was the view of the Nazi Party that "Poles and members of the Eastern peoples are fremdvolkische individuals, racially inferior . . ., and fremdvolkische persons, for reasons of state policy, must be treated in a completely different manner from Germans. "(6)" Herbert, supra, at 266 (citing the Decree of November 5, 1942 of the SS Central Office for Race and Resettlement of the Nazi Party).> At the time, however, it was economically necessary to bring Poles and others from their homeland to Germany in violation of the basic racial ideological principles of the Nazi Regime. The Nazis saw this as a justification for treating the Poles and other Eastern workers harshly. (7) Herbert, supra, at 70.>

15. Volkswagen operated its factory in Wolfsburg consistent with those beliefs. The factory director from 1941 to 1945, Hans Mayr, admitted to Allied investigators that foreign workers were treated according to a racial hierarchy.(9) Siegfried, supra, at 39. Mayr admitted that food rations were determined by race, not by the strenuousness of the labor, and that the Russians received "a little less" food than the Poles. Volkswagen's factory executives also contributed to the conditions of semi-starvation of the foreign forced workers by regularly stealing food from the factory's central kitchen, either for their own consumption, or to sell back to the workers at black market prices. (10) "Situation in VOLKSWAGEN-Plant at KDF Stadt," from Charles Carlat, First Lt. Infantry, to the Chief of Intelligence, P&PW, 12 Army Group, 5/21/45, at 7, from the War Crimes Report. To justify the use of attack dogs against Russian, Polish and Italian workers, Mayr stated that they were the worst plunderers of food. When asked whether there was any relationship between the insufficient rations the workers received and their alleged "plundering" of the kitchen, Mayr replied: "You know these Russians; they would plunder anyhow.<(11)" Id.

16. This ideology, that the Poles and Russians were undesirable and unworthy of humane treatment, was the driving force behind the deaths of 350 to 400 Polish and Russian children at Volkswagen's Kinderheim between 1943 and 1945. (12) Allied Death List (Exhibit A).

17. Of the Russians and Poles who were forced to work for Volkswagen, most were women of childbearing age. The Nazis provided Volkswagen's plant in Wolfsburg acquired at least 1500 Poles, many of them women between the ages of 14 and 32, and four to five thousand people from the Soviet Union, most of whom were women between the ages of 16 and 20. (13) Siegfried, supra, at 39.

Naturally, many of these women became pregnant, and in the beginning, the Nazi policy was to allow pregnant foreign workers to return to their homeland.

18. By March 1943, however, the German industrialists who stood to profit from the use of forced labor objected to the policy of allowing pregnant forced workers to return home. These objections prompted the Nazis, at the direction of Heinrich Himmler, to implement a three-point plan to deal more efficiently with the problem of pregnant foreign workers. First, the Nazis revoked regulations that allowed pregnant Russian and Polish women to return to their home countries to give birth. Second, the Nazis legalized abortion for Russian and Polish workers only. (14) The Nazi Regime issued "a blanket permission for abortion" in the case of Polish and Russian workers if the father was a member of an "inferior" race. However, if the baby was expected to be "racially valuable," abortion was not allowed unless permission from the relevant authorities was granted. Similarly, children of foreign workers who were of "good racial stock" were to be brought up as Germans. Herbert, supra, at 270. And third, maternity hospitals and day nurseries, or "Kinderheim," were established throughout Germany for the sole use of Russian and Polish mothers and children. These facilities were to be only in "the most simple form" and under no circumstances were any resources earmarked for German children to be used for the care or education of Russian or Polish children. The "races" were to remain strictly separate. (15) War Crimes Report at 6; "Letter received by Kreis Gifhorn Health Insurance Association quoting authority from establishing maternity hospital and day nursery," from the War Crimes Report.

19. Overall, it is estimated that 180 to 330 Kinderheim were established at the initiative of German industry during the War to care for the children of foreign workers. See Map of German Kinderheim, attached hereto as Exhibit E. Some Kinderheim were well-known in the surrounding areas for their barbaric and inhumane treatment of foreign infants. A letter to Heinrich Himmler, the Head of the Secret Police, reported that the conditions at one Kinderheim were "appalling," that the infants were "undernourished" and would "inevitabl[y] . . . die of malnutrition within a few months." See Letter to Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler from SS Lieutenant-General Hilgenfeldt, Leader, Office for Welfare, National Administration of NSDAP, of 8/11/43, attached hereto as Exhibit F. Another Kinderheim, where an estimated 450 children died in two years, was referred to locally as an "extermination camp" and "final station," and earned the nickname "Little Auschwitz." From 1942 to 1945, it is estimated that over 100,000 children of Polish and Russian forced laborers, most of them infants, perished in the Kinderheim.

20. In March 1943, Volkswagen established a maternity hospital and Kinderheim for the Poles and Russians working in Wolfsburg. From 1943 to 1945, Volkswagen operated these facilities without regard for the health or well-being of the mothers and children, and through a course of genocide, killed 350 to 400 Polish and Russian children under the age of 16 months. By deliberately providing inadequate care and unsanitary conditions which caused the rampant spread of infection and disease, Volkswagen caused the mortality rate of the day nursery to escalate from 25 percent when the nursery first opened, to nearly 100 percent in the final months of its operation. (16) War Crimes Report at 7; Allied Death List (Exhibit A).

21. Historians found that in the last two years of the war, German industry's treatment of the children in the Kinderheim and their mothers was based on ?a ruthless implementation of the "race-biological" principles which were usually applied to Eastern workers and Poles. (17) Herbert, supra, at 272.

23. Volkswagen hired Dr. Willi Otto Ohl to supervise the maternity hospital. Other staff members and patients disparagingly referred to Dr. Ohl as a "horse doctor." (19) War Crimes Report at 7; Sworn Statement of Dr. Burger Charlotte Goldglanz, 5/23/45, from the War Crimes Report. He did not examine or treat the mothers before or after delivery, and did not actually deliver the children except in the most abnormal cases, but instead left delivery up to the mostly- untrained forced laborers working in the hospital. Frequently, Dr. Ohl sent new mothers back to hard labor even though they were unfit for such work. The hospital staff employed by Volkswagen also deliberately neglected the mothers and infants. The food given to the new mothers was bad, and there was no milk. In some cases, mothers were left to clean and wash their newborns the morning after giving birth, as no one would assist them. (20) War Crimes Report at 7; Sworn Statement of Vera Kowlenko, 5/31/45, from the War Crimes Report.

24. Even though Dr. Ohl attributed the deaths of 26 children of the 500 born at the maternity hospital to the poor physical condition of the mother due to overwork, Dr. Ohl certified that every other child born at the hospital was normal and in good health when transferred to the Kinderheim. (21) War Crimes Report at 7; Sworn Statement of Dr. Willi Ohl, 6/12/45, from the War Crimes Report.

26. The Ruhen nursery consisted of two wooden barracks: one for children under three months of age, and another for the older children. The barracks could barely be called a shelter, as they were nothing more than run-down wooden shacks and offered no protection from the wind or cold. Both barracks were overrun by insects, infection, and disease caused by neglect. There were massive numbers of bedbugs and flies, and the children were covered with bites and sores. One investigator estimated that each child bore as many as 25 to 30 sores. (22) War Crimes Report at 8; Sworn Statement of Antonia Sivakova, 6/4/45, from the War Crimes Report; Statement of Czeslawa Wypyszynska.

The children cried all night while the insects crawled over them and bit them. Numerous visitors and staff reported that the infestation was so severe that the walls, floors and beds were alive with insects. One nurse observed that when you would enter the nursery at night "you would think there was an ant mound present.<(23)" Sworn Statement of Hilda Lammer, 6/9/45, from the War Crimes Report.

Despite this, no effort was made to exterminate the insects. A U.S. Army physician who inspected the Kinderheim in 1945 concluded the building would not meet even the lowest medical standards for a nursery. (24) Sworn Statement of Dr. Clifford C. Byrum, 6/8/45, from the War Crimes Report.