PRESS RELEASE

Historical Commission submits forced labour reports

The Historical Commission has today submitted reports on forced labour to Federal Chancellor Viktor Klima, Vice Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and the Presidents of the National and Federal Assemblies, Heinz Fischer and Anna Elisabeth Haselbach. In accordance with prior agreements, these reports will be treated confidentially by the Historical Commission. Unless the Commission is authorized to do so at an earlier date, it will make the reports available to the public not before 23 February 2000.

One of the reports focuses on the estimated numbers of men and women who were used as slave workers on the territory of the Republic of Austria between 1939 and 1945 and who are still alive in Austria in 2000. The study was carried out by Mark Spoerer, economist and historian at the University of Hohenheim.

The content of the report "The numbers of foreign slave labourers on the territory of the Republic of Austria in 1939 - 1945" is a detailed compilation of figures of slave labourers working on the territory of the Republic of Austria from 1939 to 1945. The study was conducted by Florian Freund, a historian and internationally renowned expert in the field of forced labour, and by Bertrand Perz, a member of the Historical Commission.

For more information, please contact: The Secretariat of the Historical Commission, Nottendorfergasse 2, A-1030 Vienna
Tel: +43/1/79540-180 or 181, Fax: +43/1/79540-186, hiskom@oesta.gv.at

Vienna, 25 January 2000