Decision no. 602/2009

In 1938, the property, located in the 21st district of Vienna, upon which a one-storey residential building built in around 1850 was situated, belonged to Scheindel S., who was Jewish. In November 1938, she had to sell the property to Johann F. for 5,500 Reichsmark. 2,300 Reichsmark of the proceeds from the sale were used to repay a loan taken out by Scheindel S. in 1937; she received 2,000 Reichsmark in cash. Two days after signing the contract, Scheindel S. fled to Palestine, where she died in 1943.

In 1948, the heirs of Scheindel S. - her widower David S. and her children Gisela G., Max S. and Aharon S. - requested the restitution of the property, which Johann F. had given to his son Franz and his wife Marie in 1942. In June 1950, the Restitution Commission Vienna ordered Franz and Marie F. to restitute the property. In February 1951, both parties concluded a settlement regarding the repayment of the purchase price and the remaining mutual claims. In this settlement, the former claimants undertook to pay an amount of 8,000 Schilling to compensate the purchase price paid in 1938 and the expenditures incurred by the "aryanizers".

From this time at the latest, David S., Gisela G., Max S. and Aharon S. sought a buyer for the property. Finally, in late 1951 they sold it to the City of Vienna. Among other things, the claim against Marie and Franz F. from the restitution proceedings was paid from the proceeds from the sale of 15,000 Schilling. Consequently, a forced auctioning procedure initiated by the couple could be averted. The municipality subsequently had the house demolished and erected two three-storey residential buildings on the property.

The present applicants - Aharon S. and three sons of Gisela G. and Max S. - asserted the extreme injustice of the outcome of the previous proceedings, without further specifying their reasons. As the Arbitration Panel has already pronounced in previous decisions, it is not able to pronounce a recommendation in cases in which the requested property has already been restituted, and therefore rejected the application for a renewed restitution.