Decision no. 382/2007

In March 1938, the approx. 2,000 m² property in Vienna, Brigittenau was owned by the spouses Gedalie and Ida N., who according to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were considered Jews, as were their children Alfred and Mathilde. The family ran a grocery shop, a milk bar and a scrap metal business on the property. After the Anschluss, the N. Family fled from Austria to France, where they initially had to live in hiding after the invasion of the German armed forces until they were arrested and deported to various prisons and camps. Alfred N. was imprisoned in the prison Fort Montluc in Lyon and shot on 18 August 1944. Ida N. was also imprisoned in Fort Montluc in 1943 as was her daughter Mathilde F. Gedalie N was also incarcerated in various camps in France. He, his wife Ida and daughter Mathilde survived the Holocaust. Gedalie N. and Ida N. returned to Vienna after the war in order to claim back their property, which had been seized in the interim.

In August 1942, the assets of Gedalie and Ida N. were forfeited to the Reich on the basis of the Eleventh decree to the Reich Citizenship Law. As a result, the administration of the forfeited assets, including the property at issue, fell to the Chief Finance President Vienna. There had already been tenants living on the premises.

In 1947, Gedalie and Ida N. applied for the restitution of the property at the Financial Directorate Vienna. Upon the order of the Financial Directorate on 19 January 1948, the property was restituted to the aggrieved owners in accordance with the provisions of the First Restitution Act and a balance of approx. 70 Schilling for available rental earnings was established. In January 1951, Gedalie and Ida N. sold the property in Brigittenau to Franziska B. for 65,000 Schilling, who later sold it to the authorities. Due to property parcel partitionings and assignments, on 17 January 2001 – the cut off day relevant for the proceeding before the Arbitration Panel – only an area of 216 m² of the former property was publicly owned.  

The applicants – children and grand children of the former owners – based their assertion of the “extreme injustice” of the contemporary proceedings on the material losses suffered by the former claimants. In the opinion of the applicants it was, among other things, extremely unjust that the National Socialist regime had moved in tenants, who had paid neither rent nor taxes.

The Arbitration Panel has already denied the recommendation of the renewed restitution of a property which has already been restituted in previous decisions (317, 318, 319). The aim of the General Settlement Fund Law is to resolve as yet unresolved matters concerning the compensation of the victims of National Socialism. In the case in question, there had been – even if only to a small extent – rental earnings between 1938 and 1945. According to the First Restitution Act, the Financial Directorate had only to award those earnings which had accumulated and were still domestically available. For this purpose, in 1948 the Financial Directorate established the balance at the time of 30 September 1947. The earnings received in the period 1938 to 1945, which had been paid over to Berlin and therefore not awarded to the applicants for restitution presented material losses which could not be taken into consideration with the restitution of the property. The General Settlement Fund Law provides for the possibility of monetary compensation for financial losses of this kind. The decision regarding this does not however fall within the competence of the Arbitration Panel. The application for restitution to be asserted before the Arbitration Panel has on the other hand already been positively decided in earlier proceedings. For these reasons, a recommendation for restitution of the property could not be pronounced.