This fund had been opened twenty-one years ago, following a historic agreement with Holocaust survivors and their families in the United States. He compensated nearly 25,000 people, for a total amount of more than 200 million euros.
Le Monde with AFP
The Austrian government dissolved on Tuesday, April 26, the compensation fund for victims of Nazism created in 2001, believing that it had “fully fulfilled its task”, according to a statement transmitted to the France Press Agency (AFP ).
“During today’s meeting, its board of directors considered that the fund was to be dissolved in accordance with the law,” said the organization on which it depends. More than 30,000 files submitted by persecuted people by the Nazis or their descendants were educated. “In total, the fund paid more than 200 million euros [compensation] to around 25,000 beneficiaries,” said the press release.
This fund had been responsible for studying the requests for the restitution of the property acquired legally after the war by the communities or the Austrian State, following the spoliations of the Jews by the Nazis during the annexation of the country to the III E reich. “More than 2,300 requests were filed” in this context and “140 met the criteria”, detailed the fund, for a value of 48 million euros.
Austria had made the historic decision to establish a compensation fund after decades of denial of its responsibility in the crimes of National Socialism. It had been the subject of superevating court attacks and their descendants in the United States, who accused individuals and communities of having taken advantage of the spoliations to enrich themselves with impunity.
After the return to power in 2000 of the far -right FPö party led by Jörg Haider, founded by former SS, the pressures from Washington and its partners of the European Union (EU) so that Austria recognize this historical reality and draws financially consequences have been accentuated. Finally, an agreement had been concluded between the United States and Austria in Washington in 2001, constituting a historic memorial turning point for the country of birth of the Nazi Dictator Adolf Hitler.