The United Restitution Office here issued a reminder today that December 31, 1961 is the deadline for filing applications with Austrian social insurance institutions by Jewish refugees from Austria who are already paying voluntary contributions into insurance schemes and who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity of paying higher contributions to earn higher pensions.
The announcement said that applications may be filed only by persons whose present monthly income is at least 3,600 Austrian schillings ($144) and who had already paid voluntary insurance contributions before January 1956 at the highest level then, without having interrupted payments since then for more than two years.
(A complete translation of the Austrian law recently enacted to compensate Nazi victims for lost possessions has been prepared by the World Jewish Congress Institute of Jewish Affairs in New York. It is available to any person interested in this matter. There are about 80,000 Austrian victims scattered throughout the world, most of them in the United States, other American lands, as well as in Israel and Great Britain.)
In Vienna, the Austrian Government announced today that former Nazi victims in Austria now living abroad, who were self-employed as professionals, businessmen, freelance artists and writers or independent artisans, will be eligible for pensions under Austria’s social security system, providing they can prove through documents what their income was prior to the Nazi regime. The documents must show, through license records or archives of bodies like the Chamber of Commerce, just what the claimant did and how much he earned during the years 1935 to 1937, the announcement stated.
The privilege of claiming social security pensions, however, will be given only to those former Austrian Nazi victims abroad who live in countries with which the Austrian Government has reciprocal agreements. Thus far, the United States is the only country having such an agreement with Austria.
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