Austrian agreement gives survivors further compensation

berlin (jta) | Austrian Holocaust survivors will receive supplementary compensation payments under a new agreement by the Austrian National Fund.

The accord, announced Sept. 8 in Vienna, will provide victims of Nazi persecution $1,200 for confiscated rental apartments, household belongings and personal items.

The disbursements come in addition to $7,000 payments already released to eligible survivors by the fund. The fund was established in 1995 after negotiations with the Claims Conference and represents some 18,000 survivors.

"It is a very good gesture to make sure that at least some of the survivors get this money while they are still alive," said Ariel Muzicant, head of the Jewish community of Austria. "But it is not the end of the day."

Another fund for survivors, The General Settlement Fund, was established in January 2001 to further compensate Austrian survivors and their heirs for real estate, liquidated businesses, bank accounts, securities, mortgages, insurance policies, personal effects and the loss of education and jobs.

But payments from the General Settlement Fund have been held up by two ongoing U.S. lawsuits against Austrian businesses.

"We don't have legal closure, and I guess it will take another year and a half" before that's reached, Muzicant said.

Still, the Claims Conference, citing the age of survivors, has been pushing the General Settlement Fund to provide advance payments of $3,000. In a statement, the Claims Conference said last week's announcement by the national fund followed its pressure for some kind of advance.

Israel Singer, president of the Claims Conference, said in a statement that he welcomed the "gesture by Austria to Jewish victims of Nazism. However, we believe it is essential that Austria make advance payments now from the General Settlement Fund, due to the catastrophic mortality rate among Austrian survivors."

An average of two Austrian survivors are dying each day, said Moshe Jahoda, representative of the Claims Conference in Austria and Germany. Some 2,000 survivors have died since the General Settlement Fund agreement was signed.

"An Austrian Jew who was 20 at the time of the Anschluss [annexation of Austria] is 86 today," Jahoda said in a statement. These survivors are a "remnant of a once-strong community. They deserve this symbolic payment in their lifetimes."

Gideon Taylor, the Claims Conference's executive vice president, said that a General Settlement Fund advance payment of $3,000 would "ensure that ongoing legal issues, which were never contemplated when this agreement was reached in 2001, do not completely prevent Austrian survivors from seeing a measure of justice in their lifetimes.'