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DEPARTMENT FOR RESTITUTION AFFAIRS

Since the mid-1990s, as a consequence of the international and Austrian developments in the process of coming to terms with the Nazi past, the Jewish Community Vienna (IKG Vienna) has been extensively dealing with the issues of compensation and restitution of assets seized during this era.

With the establishment of the “Mauerbach Fund for Needy Jewish Survivors of the Holocaust” in 1996, the IKG Vienna - as had already been the case directly after 1945 - became increasingly involved in the representation of interests of the Shoah survivors and their descendents, irrespective of their current place of residence. Thousands of contacts with Austrian Holocaust survivors all over the world were established in connection with the Mauerbach Fund and in June 1999 formed the basis for the decision of the President of the IKG Vienna, Dr. Ariel Muzicant, to set up a separate “Holocaust Victims' Information and Support Center”. The aim was to provide the victims of the NS regime and their descendents with adequate advice on the one hand, and to disclose gaps in the Austrian compensation and restitution practice on the other in order to enforce and/or encourage the enforcement of rights the Shoah survivors and their descendents had been denied.

Again and again, these efforts were successful also in the fields of art restitution, restitution in kind, and pension issues.

With the reorganization of the Holocaust Victims' Information and Support Center into the Department for Restitution Affairs in January 2009 and the consequent shift in focus on the restitution of works of art and real estate, the IKG Vienna continues its active involvement in restitution and compensation matters as well as its representation of the interests of Austrian Shoah survivors and their descendents.

CONTACT

Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (Jewish Community Vienna)
Abteilung für Restitutionsangelegenheiten (Department for Restitution Affairs)
Desider-Friedmann-Platz 1
A-1010 Wien

Phone: +43 (1) 531 04-201
Fax: +43 (1) 531 04-219
E-Mail: restitution@ikg-wien.at

ART RESTITUTION

The topic of art restitution has been a focus of the activities of the IKG Vienna since summer 1999. Employees of IKG Vienna are co-opted members of the Commission for Provenance Research and non-voting members of the Vienna Restitution Commission. The Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK), which is responsible for art restitution, as well as various provincial museums and collections regularly ask the IKG Vienna to help them find legal successors in art restitution cases. In the Restitution Reports of the past 10 years and most recently in the 2008 Art Report the Ministry described the work done by IKG Vienna as a “central contribution” to this cause.

IKG Vienna acts as an intermediary in dealing with public institutions and performs political monitoring in connection with art restitution. In recent years, IKG Vienna has repeatedly pointed out the existing problems and shortcomings of the Art Restitution Act of 1998.

In November 2009, based on the initiative of IKG Vienna, the Austrian parliament decided to amend the Art Restitution Act.

Unfortunately, in spite of its amendment, the Art Restitution Act still does not apply to the Leopold Museum Private Foundation (see also: www.raubkunst.at).

RESTITUTION IN KIND OF REAL ESTATE

Currently only one deadline regarding the restitution of real estate has not expired: Until December 15, 2011 applications for restitution in kind of real estate publicly owned by the Province of Lower Austria on January 17, 2001 can be submitted to the Arbitration Panel of the General Settlement Fund.

At the initiative of the IKG Vienna the deadline for filing applications with the arbitration panel of the General Settlement Fund for restitution in kind of real estate, which were in the ownership of certain provinces, cities, or municipalities as of 17 January 2001, has been extended until December 31, 2009 (Provinces: Burgenland, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Vorarlberg, City of Vienna; Municipalities: Bad Ischl, Frauenkirchen, Kobersdorf, Korneuburg, Mattersburg, Oberwart, Purkersdorf, Vöcklabruck, Wiener Neudorf).

The Department for Restitution Affairs of the IKG Vienna deals with numerous applications which were filed in due time thanks to comprehensive historical investigation regarding seized real estate.

The General Settlement Fund owns databases and comprehensive files documenting all properties in the ownership of the City of Vienna and the Province of Upper Austria. For detailed information please contact the Department for Restitution Affairs of the IKG Vienna or the General Settlement Fund:

Allgemeiner Entschädigungsfonds, Parlament, Dr.-Karl-Renner-Ring 3, A-1017 Wien
Phone: +43-1-408 12 63, Fax: +43-1-310 00 88
Email: gsf-sekretariat@nationalfonds.org; Internet: www.nationalfonds.org

GENERAL SETTLEMENT FUND – Deadline for application expired in 2003!

Applications for monetary compensation for losses in the following categories of assets could be filed with the General Settlement Fund: liquidated businesses including licenses and other business assets, real estate, bank accounts, shares, stocks, bonds, mortgages, movable property, insurance policies, occupational and educational losses. Applications could be filed by anybody persecuted by the NS regime and their heirs. Please note that the deadline for applications already expired on May 28, 2003 and now only the final payments are being made.