Die Presse, June 1, 2020
German original: https://www.diepresse.com/5820736/die-republik-und-die-opfer
The moral responsibility of the present-day Austrian Republic for the crimes of the NS-era went unrecognized for a long time. With the establishment of the National Fund 25 years ago this changed. Now the final report on the restitution of victims is available in book format. Everybody can read this now; it is one of the most important documents of the Second Republic.
Hofrat Geiger was a victim and also a bit of a perpetrator in Austria’s most popular movie in the immediate post-WWII period. In 1938, the Nazis had chased him out of his job, and he left an illegitimate daughter in the beautiful Wachau region, whose existence had escaped him. This he wanted to set straight, to make everything right again, so to speak. The daugther’s mother, Marianne, did not make it easy for him: “Because we are living in the reparation age (Wiedergutmachungszeitalter), right? I can’t even hear this word anymore,” was her snarky reaction to the rather late marriage proposal.
Austrians in the cinemas knew what she was talking about. More than they would like, they saw themselves confronted with requests for reparation, specifically the Western occupation powers were increasing the pressure. In 1947, three restitution acts (Rückstellungsgesetze) for repatriation and compensation of expelled and persecuted Austrians were enacted; not due to self-motivation like in the case of the “restitution officer” (Wiedergutmachungsbeamter) Hofrat Geiger. Otherwise, the motto was: “Take some time.”
Before the backdrop of the so-called victim-hypothesis, Austria’s recognition of the moral obligation towards the real victims did not materialize. It was not before the 1990s, when the restitution issue surfaced again in the light of the confiscation of artworks, class action lawsuits before U.S. courts, as well as the registration of claims by forced laborers. Austria saw itself as called upon. In 1995, the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for the Victims of National Socialism was established, it began its work with supporting vulnerable NS victims.
Black-Blue of all things.
It took until February 28, 2001 until the republic was truly ready to come clean. In early 2001, the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition government under Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel signed the Washington Agreement, a bilateral accord between the United States and Austria. In 2001, a General Restitution Fund to address any open restitution questions was established. It was endowed with USD 210 Million, an application committee was tasked with administering monetary disbursement to victims of National Socialism with precision and humanity. Its task: to clarify open questions of restitution and compensation for material losses and damages fairly and justly, to close old gaps.
The work of the internationally staffed application committee went on until 2017, the last meeting was held on April 4. The complete final report on the disbursement of some USD 215 million to 24,708 people, which was presented to the National Council in 2017, is now avialable in book format. It is without doubt one of the most important publications of the Second Republic on an unbearable injustice of the past and a beginning for reconsciliation before it is too late. Next to a collection of documents including the legal aspcets, it also contains detailed descriptions of organizational and administrative procedures. It is impossible to read it without emotions. It is an impressive insight into the processing of the applications, into the vulnerability of old people and therefore at the same time into the relationship between the victims and the present-day Republic of Austria. The British restitution expert John Barker called the work of this committeee a “judicial world wonder.”
Preceding the applications were dramatic life stories. Most applicants live (in 2020 we also have to say: lived) all over the world, the have their residence in the United States (almost 33 percent), followed by Austria, Israel, Great Britain, and Australia; the overwhelming majority of them was still directly affected by NS persecution. Many were children at that time, separated from their parents and sent abroad. They would never see their parents and relatives again. The reconstruction of events was difficult, not just because of the psychological burden, but also because the memories had fainted, documents were hard to find, and the circumstances were difficult to reconstruct. After all, some things were told within a family, other things were not. In addition, for many the application procedure was hard to understand without help from jurists.
If no material loss occurred, no compensation was planned, physical or psychological suffering did not count. Application was open to individuals, who were persecuted based on their origin, political orientation, religious affiliation, nationality, sexual orientation, disability or stigmatization as “anti-socials.” Most applications came from those who were systematically disenfranchised, robbed and displaced: Austria’s Jews.
The legal discrimination of Jews was so evident, that in their case persecution was assumed even without specific evidence in single cases. Those persecuted based on political reasons, however, had to present court documents. The largest group filing applications based on their ethnicity was the national minority of the Carinthian Slovenes, who were dispossessed and forcibly resettled.
Sensible handling.
Reconciliation cannot be forced. And one had to explain to the victims: it was not possible to pay out more that the Republic of Austria had made available to the Fund. It was about dealing with old people (or their heirs) in a sensible manner and to show them: moral responsibility is taken in Austria for their losses and damages. A balancing act that had to be delivered by Secretary-General Hannah Lessing down to the phone bank: to interact with victims respectfully and sympathetically, to listen to them, to create a basis for trust, while meticulously working out those facts that were essential to their case in a legally correct manner. An emotionally challenging task that was mastered in the Fund’s modest offices.
The fact that the immaterial suffering was not compensated had to be communicated carefully. The reaction could be: Do they not believe us? Also, not everybody understood that the disbursement of even small sums of money was connected to a general waiver of future demands. But there also were touching thank you - letters from old and sick people. “In the name of my husband I want to thank you for the payment of the Restitution Fund. I am sure that If he were still with me, we would use Austria’s generosity for another visit to Vienna.”
The final report clearly shows the stress ratio that accompanied the work of the committee: on one hand a finite amount of money, enough to only compensate a small percentage of the claims filed, on the other hand the acknowledgement of the moral responsibility. At the end has to be stated: the mere payment of money cannot compensate or scotch this injustice from the world anyway. But a place was created that listened to the victims from that time, that recorded their life stories and officially acknowledged their suffering.