Austrian Embassy in U.S. Issues Statement on Jewish Claims

A statement admitting that the question of Jewish claims for heirless property in Austria “is still awaiting final settlement” was issued today by the Austrian Embassy through its consulate here.

The statement says that “according to the records of the Austrian Government not more than $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 worth of heirless property would now be available” and claims that the rest of the heirless Jewish property was “destroyed during the war or is still being administered as so-called ‘German assets’ by the Soviet occupation authorities.”

“The Jewish organizations,” the statement declares, “have on their part submitted claims upwards to $40,000,000, based on a rough estimate not of the present value of such heirless property, but on the general losses suffered by Austrian Jews under German occupation in the years of 1938 to 1945.

“The Austrian Government,” the statement continues, “has stated repeatedly that Austria does not want to enrich herself with Nazi loot and is therefore ready to provide for the use of the still available heirless property for the Nazi victims. The Austrian Government declines, however, most categorically to pay compensation over and above these values for wrongs it did not commit and that it could not prevent because it was itself the victim of the circumstances.

“There is, of course, a fundamental difference between ‘restitution,’ meaning the return of the property still in existence, and ‘compensation,’ which means indemnifying for losses, a distinction not always clearly conceived by those who comment on that issue. The Austrian Government wishes to restitute, but refuses to compensate, because it is of course not responsible for the deeds of the German Reich,” the statement emphasizes.

SAYS BULK OF JEWISH PROPERTY WAS RETURNED

Asserting that “the bulk of Jewish property had already been returned to the former owners or their legal heirs” under the existing restitution laws, the Austrian Embassy statement declares: “An obstacle to a speedy disposition of the heirless property which the Jewish organizations apparently overlooked, but which is very much in the mind of the Austrian authorities, is that under Article 44 of the present Austrian Treaty Draft such property, rights and interests have to ‘remain heirless or unclaimed for six months after the coming into force of the present Treaty’ before they are to be handed over ‘to appropriate agencies or organizations to be designated by the Four Heads of Mission in Vienna in agreement with the Austrian Government.’

“Naturally, the Austrian Government would be reluctant to dispose of property for which claims may under the Treaty still be put forward at some later date. Also the Austrian Government has no desire to make a settlement which under the above mentioned article may be contested by the Four Powers at any future time. Pending the conclusion of the Treaty, adequate action would therefore have to be taken by or in conjunction with the four occupation powers, permitting the Austrian Government to consider heirless any property that remains unclaimed at a specified date and consenting to its disposal according to the wishes of the Jewish organizations.”

Taking issue with the fact that the Austrian negotiations have been compared to negotiations between the Governments of Germany and Israel and Jewish organizations, the statement says: “Such comparison, however, is misleading. Germany has accepted responsibility for the wrongs done to Jews not only in Germany, but also in countries under German occupation and has therefore agreed to compensate the victims or their heirs and survivors.. Austria, which was one of the countries occupied by Germany, has no such obligation and the Israel Government has never approached the Austrian Government in that respect. Austria has, however, the obligation and the desire to return stolen property, rights and interests and it has carried out this obligation to the general satisfaction of all concerned, only the question of heirless property still awaiting final settlement.”