AN 80-year-old Dubliner has become the first Irish person to be compensated for being used by the Nazis as slave labour during the second world war.

Harry Callan will receive up to €7,700 from the German government for his time as a prisoner of war.

The first instalment of the payout — 75% of the total — was lodged to the pensioner’s bank account last week. He will receive the remainder by August.

Callan’s was one of seven Irish claims submitted to the German Forced Labour Compensation Programme, a scheme established in 1999 by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Geneva to compensate victims of the Nazis.

Only two Irish claims of slave labour were approved. The second payment will go to the family of a deceased merchant seaman. The remaining five claims and a further three personal injury claims were rejected.

Callan, a merchant seaman, was interned at a camp near Bremen for two years during the war. He had been a cook on the Africa Star, a British military ship captured by the Germans. Callan was one of 31 Irish sailors forced to build U-boats for the German army at Farge from March 1943 until he was repatriated at the end of the war.

As an inmate at the Milag Nord prisoner-of-war camp in northern Germany, also known as an Arbeitserziehungslager or slave-labour camp, Callan was forced to work 18 hours a day, six days a week, surviving on a bowl of soup and three slices of black bread a day.

Testimony of his ordeal was included in Callan’s submission to the IOM. He said: “We were told we were civilians and that nobody knew where we were. We laid rails and submarine pens. In March 1945 we were sent back to Milag Nord.

“When I came home to Ireland I suffered from malnutrition. My eyesight failed for six months. I did not work for another 12 months.”

Peter Mulvany, a Dublin bus driver and law graduate who helped prepare Callan’s claim, said it was small compensation for his horrific memories.

“This man was whipped with a hose in that camp,” he said. “He was beaten and starved and did not know if each day would be his last. With this payment he finally feels that justice has been served in some way. He still suffers from nightmares and relives the experience he endured for those two years but this payment has done something to relieve those awful memories.”

Mulvany, the founder of the Irish Seamen’s Relatives Association, began his campaign to help Irish former PoWs when he learnt of the compensation scheme in June 2001. The deadline for submissions was in August of that year but with the Department of Foreign Affairs he persuaded the IOM to extend it until December.

Mulvany is convinced that other Irish people have similar stories and did not know about the compensation scheme.

“I think there would have been about 200 eligible Irish survivors or relatives of those who died.

There could have been 10,000 Irish PoWs spread throughout 80 camps in Germany during the second world war. I was astonished to discover there were 260 merchant seamen in the Milag Nord camp alone of Irish nationality.”

Originally from Londonderry, Callan moved to Dublin when he returned to Ireland in 1945. He and his wife are said to be delighted with the compensation and plan to use the money for a holiday.

When contacted by The Sunday Times Callan, who now lives in Santry, north Dublin, declined to comment on the payout.

About 75,000 people worldwide have received payments from the compensation scheme. A total of 329,000 submissions were made to the IOM. The fund was set up in August 2000. About €5.1 billion was made available by the German government and German companies who employed the forced labourers.

Diane Epstein of the IOM said the scheme had been a success for British PoWs. She admitted that greater coverage of the scheme claim in Ireland could have led to more claims. “It has been a success but there could have been greater reaction from Irish PoWs if it had been properly advertised. Money will only go so far to help people cope with the bad memories of the war but it is a step in the right direction.”

John Hipkin, an internee from Newcastle, was a prisoner at the Milag camp when 40 Irish seamen were held captive there. “It was the most dreadful time and the British and Irish men bonded in the camps because we didn’t know what was going to happen to us,” he said. “Seeing men being executed and watching people being beaten are images that have stayed with me. It is only fair that this Dublin pensioner should be compensated.”

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