The amends with victims are, at least in case of Polish people, more of an excuse than anything else. For example - my grandma’s father was bestially exploited and murdered in Auschwitz, leaving her without a father at the age of nine. Moreover, Germans closed the school around the same time, which left her uneducated for life. Add years of stress and malnutrition (hunger) as a child on top of that. If US government did such thing to its citizen, the damages awarded in court would be astronomical. Meanwhile, my granda got exactly $0 from the German government. And there are millions of people like her. So, when I hear about Germans making amends, I call it more a propaganda in action than anything else.
