Austria Accepts Jewish Terms on Reparations; Talks to Be Resumed

Negotiations between the Austrian Government and major Jewish organizations in the free world for a settlement of Jewish claims arising from the losses suffered by Jews under Nazi rule in Austria will reopen next month.

This was disclosed today by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Joint Executive Board of the Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria, who announced the group’s acceptance of an invitation from Dr. Julius Raab, Chancellor of Austria, for the resumption of the negotiations recessed last July. Dr. Goldmann said that the negotiations will be reopened probably on June 1.

In recent communications. Chancellor Raab and Finance Minister Reinhold Kamitz proposed that the negotiations consider claims to heirless Jewish property and legislative measures, taken and to be taken, for the benefit of individual surviving persecutees and their dependents.

The deadlock last year, which broke into public print on December 19, had arisen over Austria’s insistence that the question of heirless Jewish property could not then be considered. In view of subsequent developments, the Austrian Government has concluded, Dr. Goldmann reported today, that obstacles in the way of negotiating this issue could now be overcome.

In announcing the Committee’s acceptance of the Austrian invitation, Dr. Goldmann said that his group was ready to send a delegation to Vienna by the end of this month. This delegation will negotiate all pending issues, and will particularly estimate the amount of heirless property which has remained in Austria and the legislative program necessary for the individual victims of Nazism.

“It is our fervent hope, ” Dr. Goldmann said, “that the forthcoming discussions will be concluded by the end of June. This is certainly the intention of the Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria and the Association of Jewish Communities in Austria. We hope that the negotiations will result in harmonious agreement on all issues involved.”