Word: davistan
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Still, the history that Schöllgen uncovered is a reminder of the pervasiveness of Nazi policies. In 1940 Wilhelm Schaeffler acquired a company called Davistan AG in the town of Kietrz. Davistan was a former Jewish-owned manufacturer of upholstery and carpets that had gone bankrupt. In an interview with Schöllgen in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on March 2, Davistan is described as the "cornerstone of the current Schaeffler Group." The company belonged to a Jewish family named Frank that ran into trouble during the Great Depression and left Germany in 1933 as anti-Semitism began to spread...
Schöllgen shows that Davistan, which had 800 workers, also employed forced laborers. Although he is uncertain how many slaves worked for Davistan, Schöllgen says he believes the number was small. In 1943, Davistan also began producing armaments for the Nazis such as antitank weapons and aerial bombs. Schaeffler and his younger brother Georg, who would marry Maria-Elisabeth in 1964, fled Kietrz in 1945 as the Red Army advanced. Wilhelm was arrested by U.S. forces and served more than four years in Polish prisons after the war. (Schöllgen points out that none of the current allegations were...
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