National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism

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The National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism was founded in 1995 "to express the special responsibility of the Republic of Austria towards the victims of National Socialism ."

The National Fund provides services to victims of National Socialism, in particular to people who “received no or completely inadequate service, who need special help or for whom support appears to be justified because of their living situation.” The National Fund also supports a number of Projects for survivors in the social and sociological field, as well as commemoration and remembrance.

Hannah Lessing has been Secretary General since it was founded .

Foundation and goal setting

The National Fund was brought into being in 1995 on the basis of a parliamentary resolution published in the Federal Law, Federal Law Gazette No. 432/1995. His task was initially to make so-called gesture payments to people who had been victims of National Socialism in Austria between 1938 and 1945 "as quickly and unbureaucratically as possible". Due to the efficient commitment of its General Secretary, the National Fund quickly developed into a central contact point for survivors of National Socialist injustice.

The National Fund has always been entrusted with further tasks by the legislature and the federal government since its establishment:

  • In 1998 the legislature gave the National Fund the task of exploiting so-called "heirless" art objects from public ownership for the benefit of Nazi victims.
  • In 2001, on the basis of the Washington Agreement, the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism was set up in order to enable a comprehensive solution to the outstanding compensation issues for victims of National Socialism in what is now the Republic of Austria. In addition, the National Fund was entrusted with the compensation for revoked tenancy rights, household effects and personal valuables.
  • In July 2009 the Austrian Federal Government decided to redesign the “Austrian Memorial” in the former Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp and now the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum . The National Fund was entrusted with the planning and implementation of the project.
  • In 2010, also in implementation of the Washington Agreement, the Fund for the Repair of Jewish Cemeteries in Austria was established and the Secretary General of the National Fund was entrusted with its management.
  • In 2011, the National Fund was given the legal mandate to renovate the former prisoner block number 17 in Auschwitz, the site of the Austrian state exhibition.

The common goal of the National, Compensation and Cemetery Funds is to exercise Austria's special responsibility towards the victims of the National Socialist regime.

The National Fund has been a member organization of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance since 2001 . The National Fund is also involved in the preparatory work for the Austrian museum project House of History .

Life stories

The National Fund promotes the processing, documentation, publication and making accessible of the life stories of victims of National Socialism by scientists and publishers, but also conducts the compilation of contemporary witness reports, oral history and the publication of memorials of the victims in the series life stories . Authentic reports from the victims are essential for the National Fund for three reasons:

  • as a contribution to establishing the truth about the Holocaust , Porajmos and other acts of persecution and extermination by the National Socialists,
  • as a major source for historical research as well
  • as a means of raising the critical awareness of future generations.

The National Fund also emphasizes: "The authentic life stories of those affected also reveal a very personal dimension of history." Since public interest in the individual fate of people who for various reasons became victims of the National Socialist regime in Austria awoke very late and for a long time remains restricted to certain groups of victims, the National Fund seeks to preserve this knowledge and pass it on in the form of publications. In 2000, the narrow volume In depth Geblickt was published, it contained twelve very different life stories, introductory texts by Erika Weinzierl and David Vyssoki , an outlook by Hannah Lessing and a foreword by Federal President Heinz Fischer . An online collection of biographical memories has been available to all interested parties free of charge since 2008. Between 2010 and 2015, four volumes of memoirs were published.

The book publications are made available to Austrian schools free of charge for use in lessons and for school libraries. They can also be purchased on the website of the National Fund.

Project funding

Since its inception, the National Fund has supported projects in accordance with its statutory mandate. All groups of victims of National Socialism are taken into account. The main focus is on services for the surviving victims of National Socialism. It is financed from the budget of the National Fund , whereby the funds from the International Fund for Victims of National Socialism were also available for projects until 2010 and the remaining funds from tenancy fees have been used since 2013.

Priority is given to social, medical and psychotherapeutic projects that directly benefit the victims of the Nazi regime. The second focus is the scientific research of National Socialism and the fate of its victims - in order to "remember the National Socialist injustice or [to] preserve the memory of the victims". Education policy projects and commemorative projects are accorded high priority within the framework of funding policy.

Social and social medical institutions

In this area, the National Science Foundation, for example, promoted a series of projects of psychosocial center ESRA in Vienna that 1994 Nazi survivors, Jewish immigrants inside and migrants and has been established for the Jewish population of Vienna, but today also hard traumatized asylum seekers treated all denominations and supervised . In 2016, ESRA was awarded a grant for “accompanying survivors of Nazi persecution in the last phase of life”. The Central Committee of Jews from Austria in Israel was supported for “Meals on Wheels, Meals in the Club Bar in Tel Aviv for Seniors from Austria in Israel”. The cultural program of the Maimonides Sanatorium in Vienna, the self-help group in the United States and the 15 AMCHA centers throughout Israel, which provide psychosocial care for Holocaust victims from Austria and their descendants, were also funded.

Promotion of remembrance and remembrance

A wide range of events and publications are funded in this area, including book publications by well-known publishers such as Amalthea Signum , Böhlau , Burgverlag , Czernin , Ephelant and Milena , a number of audiovisual projects, and many research projects, for example the Institute for Science and Art , Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society or the Austrian Academy of Sciences , but also from QWien , the center for gay / lesbian culture and history, or the Roma Service association . A number of commemorative events, concerts and exhibitions are also funded, such as the Festival of Joy , which takes place every year on May 8th at Heldenplatz, exhibitions by the Jewish Museum Vienna or projects by the Hartheim Castle Association .

Tasks in the field of art restitution

Since 1999, the National Fund has been utilizing so-called “inherited” art objects from museums and collections of the federal government and the City of Vienna, which were illegally acquired during the Nazi regime in Austria and for which no persons entitled to restitution could be found. Before these art objects can be used, all possibilities must be exhausted in order to reach relatives of the robbed who may still be alive. In this context, the National Fund supports the art restitution bodies of the federal government and the City of Vienna in their search for heirs and has been operating a comprehensive online art database since October 2006. This contains information on more than 9,000 objects in public collections and museums of the federal and state governments as well as the University Library of Vienna . The aim is to enable victims of Nazi art theft or their descendants to search for stolen works of art.

Objects whose owners can no longer be determined are handed over to the National Fund and subsequently sold. The proceeds will benefit those victims of National Socialism who did not receive a gesture payment due to lack of entitlement to claim. For example, in 2010 the Austrian National Library gave around 8,000 stolen publications from its holdings to the National Fund and then bought them back. The National Fund was responsible for determining a fair purchase price and the formal handling of the return and buyback.

Exhibition distance. Austria in Auschwitz

The new national exhibition of Austria in the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau is currently in progress . The old exhibition from 1978 was carefully documented and dismantled. At the end of April 2014, following a Europe-wide tender, the National Fund commissioned the following team to curate the new exhibition in Block 17: Siegfried Göllner , Birgit Johler , Albert Lichtblau , Christoph Mai , Christiane Rothländer , Barbara Staudinger and Hannes Sulzenbacher . The new exhibition is entitled “Distance. Austria in Auschwitz ”, whereby the term“ distance ”refers to the geographical distance between Austria, the place of deportation, and Auschwitz, the place of extermination. This distance was an essential part of the National Socialist strategy of denial of mass murder. At the same time, the word “distance” also means annihilation, the physical removal of the deportees from their home in Austria and from their lives. The term should not only be made intellectually understandable, but also made visually and sensually tangible. The exhibition will consist of “three interdependent and interconnected levels” - the “here” (Auschwitz), the “there” (Austria) and the “emptiness”.

The fundamental renovation of Block 17 must be completed beforehand.

On the occasion of the commemorative year 2015 , the curatorial team presented the postcard project “Austria / Auschwitz” with drawings by Jan Kupiec from 1945. The Polish Auschwitz prisoner drew motifs and scenes from Auschwitz and Birkenau and used the backs of postcards to highlight the sights Show Austria. The curators justified their new edition: "Bringing the postcards to Austria in one edition is a contribution to bringing these two places closer together in the collective memory."

location

The National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism shares offices with the

  • General compensation fund for victims of National Socialism and with the
  • Fund for the repair of the Jewish cemeteries in Austria.

These institutions are located at the parliament , but the office space is at Kirchberggasse 23 in Vienna's 7th district.

Publications (selection)

  • (Ed.): Looking into the depths. Life stories , Vienna 2000 (INW edition), 80 pages
  • Renate S. Meissner on behalf of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism (ed.): Memories. Life stories of victims of National Socialism
    • Volume 1, Vienna 2010
    • Volume 2, Vienna 2012
    • Volume 3, Vienna 2013
    • Volume 4, Vienna 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Act on the Return of Works of Art from the Austrian Federal Museums and Collections, Federal Law Gazette I 181/1998
  2. ↑ Federal Law Gazette I No. 11/2001. As part of the implementation of the Washington Agreement, a total of 150 million US dollars was made available for payments in the context of tenancy compensation. Applications could be submitted up to June 30, 2004. Around 23,000 applicants or their heirs were paid lump sums of 7,630 euros or 7,000 US dollars, as well as an additional payment of 1,000 euros each. The remaining funds have been used since 2013 in accordance with the Washington Agreement for programs for the benefit of victims of National Socialism. The basis for this was laid in an amendment to the law (BGBl. I No. 9/2013).
  3. ↑ Implementation of the government program of the Federal Government Faymann I , chapter "Art and Culture", point 17, "Responsibility to the Victims of National Socialism"
  4. ↑ Federal Law Gazette I No. 99/2010. The fund was set up by the National Council of the Republic of Austria and is endowed with one million euros annually by the federal government for a period of 20 years. The law provides that the owners of the cemeteries must always raise funds in the same amount for repairs.
  5. ↑ Federal Law Gazette I No. 128/2011
  6. ↑ enken.at : National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism , accessed on December 2, 2016.
  7. ↑ a b National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism: Funded projects of the National Fund , accessed on December 5, 2016.
  8. ^ Art database of the National Fund