Decision no. 912/2013

Application

 

Applicant, Status

Eva B., Rejection

Public owner

Stadt Wien

Type of property

immovable

Real estate in

KG Leopoldstadt (01657), Wien, Wien | show on map

Decision

 

Number

912/2013

Date

19 Mar 2013

Reason

In rem restitution already granted after 1945

Type

substantive

Decision in anonymous form

Press release

Press Release Decision No. 912/2013

Vienna, Leopoldstadt
On 19 March 2013, the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution rejected an application for in rem restitution of a one half share of a property in Vienna, Leopoldstadt, as it had already been restituted in 1950.

In 1938, the requested half of the property, a tenanted apartment building in the 2nd District of Vienna, belonged to Rosa L. The other half of the property belonged to her sister Josefine G. Both were members of the Jewish Religious Community.

After the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, discriminating taxes and charges were imposed on Rosa L. and Josefine G. In order to be able to meet these payment obligations, they sold the property in June 1941 to Katharina S. and Katharina M. for 166,000 Reichsmark. In order to settle a part of the purchase price, the buyers assumed a loan and took out a mortgage to secure the acquired property. The purchase price was used, among other things, to pay Jewish capital levy and secure Reich Flight Tax claims; the remainder was transferred into blocked accounts held in the names of Rosa L. and Josefine G.

In September 1942, both sisters were deported to the ghetto and concentration camp Theresienstadt, where they died in January 1943. The assets of Rosa L., including the balance of the account, were confiscated for the benefit of the German Reich on the basis of the Verordnung über die Einziehung volks- und staatsfeindlichen Vermögens (“Ordinance on the Confiscation of Assets Hostile to the Population and the State”) in January 1943.

After the end of the National Socialist regime the heirs of Josefine G. conducted restitution proceedings. These resulted in 1949 in the restitution of Josefine G.’s one half share in the property in exchange for the reimbursement of one half of the purchase price, in the form of, among other things, the assumption of a proportional share of the mortgage taken out by Katharina S. and Katharina M.

In 1948, the daughters of Rosa L., who had survived the National Socialist regime in the USA and England, also filed for restitution of the one half of the property formerly belonging to their mother. In 1950 they concluded a settlement with Katharina S. and Katharina M. before the Restitution Commission Vienna according to which the property half was restituted in exchange for a payment of 41,000 Schilling and the assumption of a proportional share of the mortgage.

After the heirs of Rosa L. and Josefine G. had sold their shares in the property in 1958 and 1961, these shares were ultimately acquired by the City of Vienna in 1977.

The present application, submitted to the Arbitration Panel by the widow of a grandchild of Rosa L., was rejected as the half share of the property formerly belonging to Rosa L. had already been restituted.

For use by media; not legally binding upon the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution.
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