Reparations are efforts, usually by a nation’s government, to make up for harm or wrongdoing that has occurred in the past. Reparations often include the payment of money or the return of property to individuals or groups. Other forms of reparations include formal apologies and changes in government policy.
Historically, reparations have been payments that victorious nations demanded from defeated nations after a war. However, reparations of this kind have become unpopular because they can lead to resentment and further fighting. Today, reparations more often involve a government’s payments to people it has mistreated. After World War II ended in 1945, for example, West Germany paid over $800 million to Jews and the state of Israel to make up for Nazi persecution and murder in the Holocaust. This agreement became a model for later reparations demands.
In 1988, the United States government agreed to pay $20,000 per person to Japanese Americans who had been held in U.S. detention camps during World War II. Native groups in many countries have fought, sometimes successfully, for the return of land taken through fraud and broken treaties. Some African Americans have called on the U.S. government to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves.
