Germany has “agreed in principle” to provide millions of dollars to U.S. citizens who were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps. While the reparations made to Americans held in the deadly barracks will be welcomed, another delayed attempt at humane justice has come too late and neglected millions of nameless victims who really need it.

Those not fortunate enough to have visited a former Nazi concentration camp can trust in the image I lay before you. Even a photographic diary etched in the memory is enough to affect future generations not yet aware of the gory details surrounding the Holocaust.

Even on a sunny day, a grayscale sky seemed to envelop the Dachau concentration camp located just outside of Munich. Rows of beds always contained one, often more, patrons. Lethal gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms to surprise unsuspecting “criminals.” Bodies were taken to the crematorium to make more room for the countless dead.

Imagine never knowing if this day will be your last, always wondering if a bullet may stop you from taking your next step. Imagine losing everything you and generations of your family before you had worked so hard to save and possess. Imagine watching your friends and family walk off to die. Imagine never knowing when or if the horror would end; your sole motivation is a sign that hangs above the locked steel gates reading, “Hard Work Will Set You Free.”

After 50 years of denial, it is time for some accountability. Only 230 Americans who endured these tragic conditions have lived to see the day of so-called retribution. For these survivors, the German government has “graciously” extended each claimant $10,000 for each month they spent incarcerated at the Nazis’ concentration camps. Of course, a special, additional payment will be made to those who have evidence that their stay led to permanent disability.

But more than likely, victims will not see these checks for at least six months, even though the deal was supposed to have been completed a year ago. At least five of the awarded victims have already died while waiting for their money, and others remain ill.

While these scraps of atonement are accepted by humanitarians giving birth to the clich‚, “better late than never,” reparations continue to exclude the masses of people persecuted by Nazis, but not put in their death camps.

One survivor not deemed eligible by the U.S. government was an American who, as a teenager in Hungary, helped three Jews escape. He was shot in the arm and remains permanently disabled. According to the proposed new deal, this commendable, gentle hero will receive no compensation because he was incarcerated in a Gestapo prison, not a concentration camp.

What about victims forced into the Nazis’ slave labor? Many of these companies still reign as successful today—household names such as Volkswagen, Ford’s German facilities and many others.

This great “deal” excludes the nearly eight million “employees” who were forced into hard labor that lasted 18 hours a day, seven days a week and killed most of them. Hundreds of thousands may still be alive today. Suffering the kind of mental exhaustion and fear that one cannot help but label “permanent.”

Let the Germans not take all the blame for delayed restitution. The U.S. cannot calmly sit back and point fingers. Most of the Americans who were sent to the concentration camps were either Jewish-Americans living overseas when the war broke out or captured soldiers who were Jewish or considered “troublemakers.”

However, the U.S., unlike many Western European states, had never made compensation claims for its citizens, including the American soldiers that were defending the minority and insuring this country’s best interests.

This plea for directed reparations is not an attempt to display the Holocaust as a property dispute. This is a symbolic recognition of a long-standing moral debate. We need to ensure that reparations are given to all those innocent people who suffered the trauma of Hitler’s reign. This historical undertaking will set a precedent for future generations.

Six million people were murdered because they remained faithful to their hearts, their homeland and their religion. For the remaining survivors and their families, no compensation on earth can make up for this black hole in the history of humankind.

Ellyn Peterson is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Algona.