Austria agrees to settlement for Nazi-era forced laborers (11/19/00)

Austria agrees to settlement for Nazi-era forced laborers

by Myroslaw Smorodsky

VIENNA, Austria - In an official signing ceremony at the Federal Chancellery of Austria, the governments of the United States, Austria, Belarus, the Czech republic, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, as well as the lawyer-representatives for Nazi-era slave/forced labor victims, signed a series of agreements whereby the laborers forcibly deported to the territory of Austria 55 years later would receive some modicum of compensation for their suffering.

Thereafter, at a separate ceremony at the office of the federal president of Austria, Dr. Thomas Kestil apologized to the victims for the suffering they had endured. He also acknowledged that these victims were never compensated in the past, nor was their suffering properly recognized.

Unlike an earlier German settlement, the Austrian negotiations did not require that all claims be settled immediately as part of one settlement package. Instead the signed agreements contemplated the immediate completion of the slave/forced labor component, and development of a structure toward negotiating the complex property claims in the near future, with the aim of completing these property negotiations by year's end.

The Austrian settlement documents signed on October 24 provide for compensation in amounts similar to that of the German settlement. However, unlike the German settlement, the Austrians immediately agreed to pay compensation to persons who labored on farms and for private industry in Austria. Slave laborers will receive 105,000 Austrian shillings; industrial workers, 35,000 Austrian shillings; and farm and private enterprise forced laborers, 20,000 shillings.

These funds are to be distributed in Central and East European countries by the existing reconciliation foundations in those countries. The Austrians themselves will process the applications and distribute the payments to victims who live in other parts of the world. As soon as the procedures for applications are established, worldwide public notice will be given.

Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Oleksander Mydon signed the agreement documents on behalf of the government of Ukraine.

Myroslaw Smorodsky is an attorney based in Rutherford, N.J., who has instituted separate actions against Austria on behalf of all forced and slave laborers within the Central and Eastern European countries.

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