Only this week we found my father-in-law as a forced labourer in Germany. He was from the Ukraine. He never saw his family again though many survived via the same forced labour scheme.

In 2001 the IOM paid war reparations to about 90,000 forced labourers whereas the other 300,000 were deemed to have not lived in enough discomfort or other factors such as the country they returned to, which prevented payment of about 5,000 Euros. My father-in-law received nothing. Not even a letter to make a claim.

He refused to give up his Ukrainian identity and died in 2003. He has a Ukrainian symbol on his gravestone in Wales.