Decision no. 89/2006

In 1938, one half of the applied for real-estate property, including an apartment-house, was owned by R. G.; the other half by the married couple N. W. and J. W. Being persecuted as Jews by the National Socialists, all co-owners had to flee abroad with their families. The two sons of family W., the present applicants E. A. W. and E. S. W., were able to escape to Palestine. In 1942, J. W. and his daughter were deported from Prague to Terezin and then murdered. N. W., J. W’s wife, died during her escape to Palestine. The co-owner R. G. was able to escape to New York. In 1939, in Prague Mr. and Mrs. W. authorized the lawyer Dr. F. to sell the real-estate property in Vienna, Neubau. However, the contract for sale which had been negotiated with a private prospective buyer by Dr. F. had not been approved by the NS-authorities because the City of Vienna had asserted a public interest regarding this property. It intended to have a street aperture carried out. Finally, the real-estate property was sold to the City of Vienna in 1940.

In December 1948, E. A. W. and E. S. W. together with R. G. applied for the restitution of the real-estate property in Vienna, Neubau. The City of Vienna was very keen on keeping the real-estate property, in order to realize the street aperture which had already been planned at the time of acquisition, and hence strived for settlement procedures which ended with the signature of a settlement in 1954. In this settlement, the claimants, in return for 20.000,- Schilling, renounced to the restitution of the real-estate property.

The Arbitration Panel had to examine whether the settlement presents a case of “extreme injustice” in accordance with Sec. 32 of the General Settlement Fund Law. First, it established that the settlement amount was much lower than the value, which would have been asserted to the claimants by the restitution commission. Above all, proceeds had not been taken into consideration. In addition, E. A. W. and E. S. W. had a very limited scope for negotiation during the conclusion of this settlement. Due to their difficult financial situation they were extremely limited in their possibilities of choosing the kind of assertion of their legal rights, which would have seemed the most favourable and suitable to them. In particular, they could not choose the lawyer of their confidence.

On the other hand, the City of Vienna took advantage of its superior position in order to put the claimants under pressure especially by threatening them with expropriation and exaggerated indemnification claims. The interplay of these circumstances triggered a misbalance for the disadvantage of the claimants which became causal for the conclusion of the settlement. Hence, the settlement was to be classified as being “extremely unjust”. For this reason, the Arbitration Panel regarded the claims of the heirs after N. W. and J. W. as principally being rightly extant. The Arbitration Panel regards a restitution as not suitable since today a communal building is situated on the real-estate property and will therefore award a comparable asset after consultations with the City of Vienna.