“WE THOUGHT we knew our story, and we knew it wasn’t great,” says Maurice Brenninkmeijer, chairman of COFRA Holding, which owns C&A, a 175-year-old Dutch clothing retailer with over 2,000 stores globally. Yet the full account of how the German branch of his family behaved in the second world war “tore through your heart when you heard it”, he adds. Mr Brenninkmeijer’s ancestors—considered to be genial, virtuous, Catholic and reserved—turned out to have been avid Nazi collaborators. Old letters revealed cosy, corrupt, ties to Hermann Goering. From 1942 onwards C&A and Siemens, a German engineering firm, together exploited forced Eastern European labourers in Germany, keeping them in such a wretched state that malnutrition killed several women and children. C&A profited from “Aryanisation”, grabbing business and property from terrified Jewish owners. Perhaps worst, it used Jewish tailors and leather-workers, corralled in Lodz, a dreadful ghetto in Poland. Of some 200,000 people trapped in inhumane conditions there, only 1,000 survived to liberation.

“我们知道我们的历史不是很光彩。”科弗拉控股公司（COFRA Holding）董事长毛里斯·布勒宁克迈尔（Maurice Brenninkmeijer）说道。科弗拉旗下的荷兰服装零售公司西雅衣家（C&A）拥有175年的历史，并在全球设有2000多家分店。然而，布勒宁克迈尔家族的德国分支在第二次世界大战时的所作所为“在亲耳听见时，仍然令人心痛，”他说道。在人们的眼中，毛里斯•布勒宁克迈尔的先祖友好、善良且宽宏大量，可当战争来临时，他们却变成了狂热的纳粹帮凶。布勒宁克迈尔家族昔日与赫尔曼•戈林（Hermann Goering:纳粹德国的一位政军领袖，与“元首”阿道夫•希特勒的关系极为亲密，在纳粹党内有相当巨大的影响力）的信件往来透露出双方亲密、腐化的关系。从1942年起，C&A联合德国电气工程公司西门子（Siemens）一并对身处德国的东欧苦役们进行了大肆剥削。因长期生活在极为艰苦的环境下，许多妇女儿童因营养不良而导致丧命。纳粹政府的“亚利安化”政策令C&A大为受益，从惊慌失措的犹太业主手中夺去生意及财产，甚至还迫使被圈禁在波兰罗兹犹太聚居区的犹太裁缝与制革工人为他们工作，那里犹如人间炼狱，最终在20多万人中，只有1000人幸存并重获自由。

Such grim details are now public thanks to Mark Spoerer, a historian in Regensburg who specialises in archival research to assess companies’ dark pasts, putting “immoral business behaviour” into historical context. Remarkably, his new book “C&A: A family business in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom 1911-1961”, was commissioned by the notoriously reclusive family. Mr Spoerer, over five years and with generous funds, was given unrestricted access to private files, conducted interviews freely and had the right to publish all he found.

经由雷根斯堡历史学家马克•斯波雷尔（Mark Spoerer）的努力，这些黑暗的历史细节才得以重见天日。斯波雷尔专注于企业档案研究，挖掘黑暗的过去，为“不道德的商业行为”找寻其所处的历史背景。值得一提的是，他的新书《C&A：1911-1961年间德国、荷兰、英国三地家族企业史》即是受这个出名低调的家族之托写成的。在5年多的时间里，斯波雷尔不仅得到了慷慨的资金支持和进行自由采访的许可，还获得了授权，无限制访问私人档案和将全部研究所得公开出版。

Being low-profile went from being something worthy, to something strange, and now suspect, says Mr Brenninkmeijer, in a rare interview. Though some relatives were said to be reluctant to confront old horrors, he says all now agree on the need for a sort of corporate therapy, “so we have an understanding of our history, not as a burden but as a platform”. This, he says, helps the family get a deeper sense of itself. A core of 30 family members are active owners and managers of the firm; around 1,300 Brenninkmeijers form an outer circle.

布勒宁克迈尔在为数不多的一次专访中称，低调是因为我们曾经受人敬重，后来令人深感陌生，到现在难以被人信任。他表示，虽然有一部分亲属不大愿意旧事重提，但是大家都同意要进行一种“集体心理治疗”，“让我们了解自己的历史，不把它当作负担，而是作为一个再次出发的平台。”他认为，这本书能帮助整个家族更深入地认识自我。目前布勒宁克迈尔家族的30名核心成员享有了公司的主要所有权和管理权，而整个家族约有1300人。

It is rare for a company to confront an ugly past so openly, especially as C&A faced no looming pressure from victims’ relatives, journalists or other outsiders. Firms are most likely to do so if they have a strong international presence and deal directly with consumers, says Mr Spoerer. Another corporate historian, Lutz Budrass, assessed 100 companies that thrived in Germany in 1938 and still exist in some form today. He suggests that only 30 have yet organised a serious scholarly assessment of their wartime activities, while 40 have done nothing at all, including five companies which, he says, “were very heavily involved” in Nazi crimes.

一家企业能如此坦诚地直面丑恶的过去，实属罕见。尤其是C&A的此举并非迫于受害者亲属、记者或外界人士的压力。斯波雷尔表示，通常采取这类做法的公司都有强大的国际影响力，直接和消费者打交道。另一位企业历史学家卢茨·布达拉斯（Lutz Budrass）考察了100家公司，它们曾是1938年的德国鼎盛一时，时至今日仍以某种形式存在。他表示，至今为止，其中只有30家企业曾对它们的战时活动进行过严谨的学术调查，有40家公司没有进行任何调查；据斯波雷尔称，这其中还有五家公司曾“深度参与”了纳粹罪行。

He points to Deutsche Post, a successor of Reichspost, and much of the German steel industry as particularly hostile to the idea of exploring their pasts. Siemens has made only partial efforts to assess its wartime role. In the car industry, Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler have owned up to their intimately close associations with Nazis, but other firms have not. Mr Budrass is especially dismissive of German aircraft companies. He was commissioned in 2002 by Lufthansa to write part of its 75th anniversary, especially in explaining its use of 8,000 forced labourers in 1944. But the firm refused to publish it, acceding only this year once Mr Budrass brought out a separate book on the airline’s past. He also argues that Airbus, the European aircraft-manufacturing group which incorporated old entities including Messerschmitt (one of the largest users of concentration-camp labour), is “trapped by fear of its past” in failing to commission a proper history.

他指出，前身为帝国邮政（Reichspost）的德国邮政集团（Deutsche Post）以及大部分德国钢铁企业都对挖掘自身历史这一行为极为排斥。西门子仅对它在战时扮演的角色进行了个别评审。在汽车业，只有大众（Volkswagen），宝马（BMW）以及戴姆勒（Daimler）三家公司承认曾与纳粹有过密切接触。布达拉斯对德国航空公司尤为不屑。2002年德国汉莎航空（Lufthansa）委托他为该公司成立75周年大庆写点东西，尤其叮嘱其要就1944年该公司的8000名强制劳工做出解释。可是，此后汉莎拒绝发表文稿，直到今年才改变态度，原因是布达拉斯出版了一本该公司的企业史图书。布达拉斯还提到欧洲飞机制造商空中客车集团（Airbus）。该公司合并了包括梅塞施米特公司（集中营劳工的最大雇主之一）在内的一部分战时企业，如今他们“为对自身历史的恐惧所困”，始终没能委托专家写出真实的公司史。

How cleansing is the sunshine?

阳光下有多少罪恶能洗去？

Perhaps it is not irrational for firms to shy away from difficult memories. And German firms are more transparent than most. Some 6,000 companies and the German state contributed to a €5.1bn ($4.5bn) fund created in 2000 to compensate victims of forced labour. By contrast, it took until 2014 for foreign relatives of holocaust victims transported by SNCF, the French railway, to be allowed to seek compensation from the state. Many Japanese firms can trace their histories back to wartime exploits, including the use of slave labour, but are far less likely to assess what went on than German ones. Similarly it is rare for American financial firms to admit to profiting from businesses related to slavery in the mid-19th century, as Aetna and JPMorgan Chase have. Nor is there any serious discussion to suggest firms which made money in apartheid South Africa should today offer compensation.

或许，这些企业逃避那些不堪回忆的往事是情有可原。德国企业是各企业中最为透明的。在2000年，6000多家德企连同德国政府共同设立了一只总金额高达51亿欧元的基金，向强迫劳动的受害者提供赔偿。与之形成对比的是，法国国营铁路公司（SNCF）在战争期间曾协助运送了大量大屠杀受害者，而直到2014年，这些受害者的家属才获允许寻求国家赔偿。很多日本企业的发家史也离不开战争财，具体表现为奴役劳工等，但对它们的评审要比德国案例困难得多。同样，想让美国的各家金融公司，如安泰保险（Aetna）及摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）等承认它们曾在19世纪中期通过贩奴生意赚钱也很难。此外，让南非境内曾因种族隔离政策获利的企业现在赔偿受害者，这也是几乎是不可能的事。

Mr Brenninkmeijer and the historians say that understanding the past brings deeper strengths—virtues that can help the business today. Finding out the whole story can be liberating and “helps you understand who you are”, he says. The boss of C&A is preparing for members of the sixth generation of his family to run the private firm and wants them to learn how to hold serious discussions of ethical dilemmas, citing as an example his own worry over the firm’s high consumer-credit charges in Brazil in the early 1990s.

布勒宁克迈尔与一些历史学家都认为，了解过去能让自己更强大——现在的企业会因此受益。他表示，了解过去的一切后会感到如释重负，“帮助你认清自我”。这位C&A公司董事长正在为家族中的第六代继承人接班做准备；他希望他们了解怎样与他人严肃地探讨道德困境问题，并引用了在九十年代中期，自己对公司在巴西的高额消费信贷收费而倍感忧虑一事作为例子。

He argues, too, that managers must give more thought to their supply chain, as in Bangladesh where 30% of the firm’s goods are made, and consider how best to assess whether child labour or dangerous conditions exist; in 2012 a fire in a Dhaka factory supplying Western firms, including C&A, killed 117 people. If Mr Brenninkmeijer is right, then instead of worrying about skeletons in the cupboard, a firm that squarely faces up to its yesterdays should learn how to behave better today.

布勒宁克迈尔还认为，公司管理人员必须重视供应链，因为C&A公司有30%的产品在孟加拉国生产。同时还要注意有效评估是否存在雇佣童工和安全隐患问题。2012年，达卡的一家工厂发生大火，致117人遇难，这家工厂向一些欧美企业供货，其中就包括C&A。如布勒宁克迈尔所说，与其对不可告人的秘密遮遮掩掩，不如大胆正视昨天的自己，努力让今天的自己变得更好。

编译：Horla

审校：Cocoa1996

编辑：翻吧君

英文来源 ：经济学人