Only 35 Jews in Vienna have recovered homes seized from them by the Nazis, despite a promise from the local officials that their claims would receive prompt action, David Brill, president of the Vienna Jewish Community declared in a complaint to municipal officials over the week-end.
The head of the Vienna housing office, Alderman H. Albrecht, answered the complaint by stating that “Viennese homeless Jews shall live in asylums until their former dwellings are returned.” Brill told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that 500 Vienna Jews, including Siegfried Fuchs, Jewish Community-Council vice-president, are still living in various institutions.
Charging the government with a lack of “good will in the restitution of Jewish property,” Brill declared that the few shops and homes recovered by Austrian Jews was accomplished on the Jews’ initiative rather than by government efforts. He pointed out that the Jews are asking for the return of only 1,000 apartments of 65,000 formerly occupied by them.
The community has called a public mass meeting for next week to air its grievances against the “Third Restitution Law,” which the Jews maintain will not fulfill their demands.
They protest the fact that the law does not provide for establishment of a joint restitution and rehabilitation fund which was promised them and that it protects the tenancy rights of the present occupants of “aryanized” property. It is unofficially estimated that damages suffered by Vienna Jews during the Nazi regime amounted to $200,000,000.
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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.
