U.S. Jewish Leaders Meet with Austrian Chancellor on Claims

A delegation representing 22 world and national Jewish organizations that form the Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria, conferred here this afternoon, at the Shorehain Hotel, with the Austrian Chancellor, Julius Raab.

The Jewish leaders urged that the Austrian Government fulfill, speedily and effectively, the obligations it had undertaken in the 1955 State Treaty concluded between Austria and the former occupying powers–the United States, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. They also called for the payment of compensation to the Austrian Jewish communities for synagogues and related communal institutions destroyed during the Nazi era.

The six man delegation placed great weight, in the course of today’s conference, on the fact that thousands of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, most of whom were driven out of Austria twenty years ago, continue to await some measure of compensation for the losses inflicted upon them. ” Many of the victims, they underscored, have reached an advanced age and live in dire financial circumstances.

The delegation pointed out that the Austrian Government has taken only preliminary steps to date in meeting the commitments it had undertaken in the State Treaty to return property and to restore rights and interests that had fallen victim to confiscation under Nazi measures.

The six leaders were: Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman; Jacob Blaustein, honorary president of the American Jewish Committee; Frank Goldman, honorary president of B’nai B’rith; Dr. Israel Goldstein, honorary president of the American Jewish Congress. Dr. Gustav Jellinek, president of the American Federation of Jews from Austria; and Dr. Nehemiab Robinson, legal advisor to the World Jewish Congress.