Austria’s New Offer on Jewish Claims Considered Unacceptable

An offer by Chancellor Julius Raab of Austria to pay 30,000,000 schilllings ($1,200,000) to the Vienna Jewish Community on account of the Jewish claims for restitution’s and heirless Jewish property was regarded in Jewish circles here today as a sign of goodwill but as unacceptable in the present circumstances.

Chancellor Raab announced his offer last night at a Cabinet meeting. He said it had been made to the Committee on Jewish Claims on Austria as an advance installment on world Jewish claims–to be used to support aged and needy members of the Jewish community in Austria–pending a final settlement.

Austrian Government sources today stated that the Chancellor’s letter addressed to Dr. Nahum Goldmann, head of the Jewish claims committee, said that the Austrian Government would add to this whatever further value might be agreed to in a final settlement. On the other hand, a government spokesman said, the government rejects Jewish demands for compensation on other Jewish losses be restored. (In New York, Dr. Goldman stated today that the Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria had not as yet received the interim offer from the Austrian chancellor.)

It was considered doubtful that the world Jewish organizations banded together in the claims committee would accept the offer. They had stipulated an advance payment of 50,000,000 schilling s on a lump sum settlement of heirless property and the additional sum of 100.000,000 schillings as compensation for other losses which cannot be restored. The Vienna Jewish Community, whose relations with the claims committee are of best, is considered certain to declare Chancellor Raab’s offer unacceptable.

Chancellor Raab offered to release the 30,000,000 schillings to the Vienna Jewish Community over a period of two years. The offer provided that the Vienna Community would use the money in a manner agreed to between it and the claims committee. It was pointed out that one of the reasons the offer to the Vienna Community would be considered unacceptable was that the Vienna organization represents only about 10 percent of the total number of former Austrian Jews. whose claims are included in the world organizations’ demands.

The Austrian Government’s latest proposal, foreign observer believe, is a result of the government’s uncertainty over what the next move of the Jewish claims committee will be and as a result of diplomatic intervention by the Israel Government which has called for an early settlement of the Jewish claims.

Chancellor Raab, in his letter to Dr. Goldmann, said that the Austro-Jewish negotiations had already produced some noteworthy results, such as the removal of discrimination against Nazixvictims in the field of civil service and in welfare regulations. Furthermore, the Chancellor declared, a draft amendment to the Austrian social insurance law submitted to Parliament extends the benefits of Austrian social insurance to personae who left the country. This amendment, the Chancellor noted, fulfills one of the essential demands of the Jewish committee.