A legal basis for the return of about 4,000 “Aryanized” properties in Austria has been established by the publication today of the country’s first restitution law. The Allied Council has permitted the Austrian bill to become law by refraining from protest during the legally established 31-day period.
The new law, according to officials, is the first step in the general process of restitution of Jewish property which was seized by the Nazis. Through this law, property which the Nazis stole from the Jews will be returned to the proper owners. Under existing provisions, only properties which were under the administration of the State or provincial governments would be restored.
At the same time, a decree goes into effect which requires the registration of all properties or objects of value of any sort which were taken by force on a quasi-legal basis since the “Anschluss” in 1938. A law governing the restitution of such properties will be considered by the parliament in October.
That means that all anti-fascists and Jews will have to wait for more than 18 months after liberation for the establishment of a legal basis for the restitution of property. For one group, the chances of restitution are not too favorable. In the last few days, Captains Dewashin and Dimitieff have demanded, in the name of the Russian occupation forces, the immediate surrender of 28 buildings in the Russian section of Vienna which belonged to Polish Jews and which were seized by the Nazis with out compensation.
They were transferred by the Germans to the German Reich Railways Direction in 1943-44 for 2,000,000 marks. The owners in nearly every instance died in concentration camps but there are legal heirs. The Austrian Railways Direction, as the present administrator of the buildings, has protested that they are not German properties but houses which were seized from the Jewish owners by force.
The Russians stated that nevertheless they had been German property under Adolf Hitler and that therefore they are Russian property, in accord with the Potsdam agreement. The Jews were advised to bring their claims to the Russian state. The buildings have already been transferred to the Russians and rents are being paid to them. The Soviet authorities are demanding, however, the immediate transfer of the remaining properties.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
