III.6. Further restitution and compensation measures
III.6.1. The Assistance Funds
It was not until 1953 that negotiations began between Austria and the "Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria" on the question of compensation. Immediately after the signing of the Vienna State Treaty, planning work started for setting up the 1st Assistance Fund in 1956. It was endowed with ATS 550 million and provided for graded non-recurrent payments depending on the applicants' age and health to persons who had been compelled to leave Austria and who were not entitled to regular payments under the Victims Welfare Act because they no longer held Austrian nationality. In the Bad Kreuznach Agreement concluded with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961, the Republic of Austria undertook to create a ATS 600 million fund (the New Assistance Fund, set up in 1962) out of which forced emigrants from Austria were to receive compensation for losses suffered in their careers and education: theses losses had been made good to Austrian Nazi victims by the 12th amendment to the Victims Welfare Act. In 1976 the Assistance Fund structure was reactivated in response to demands also raised by the associations of political victims for a "final" settlement of the compensation issue. Again graded on social criteria, Austrians and ex-Austrians who had been victims of political or racial persecution were once more eligible for a non-recurrent payment. This Assistance Fund was endowed with ATS 440 million. The scheme was last reactivated in 1988 in connection with the Honorary Grants Act. Payments were made to distressed Nazi victims not eligible to receive money from the "Ausgleichsfonds" (Equalisation Fund), especially ex-Austrians.
III.6.2. Measures in the field of social security
Compensation in this field was to a large extent the result of pressure by the Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria, supported by some of the Allied Powers, primarily the US and Great Britain. Important research remains to be done on the following subjects: the fact that old-age pensions were not paid to former Austrians living abroad until 1953; the fact that it was only in the early sixties that victims of persecution received arrears of pensions that had been withheld in the period 1938-1945; and still ongoing amendments to the provisions on benefits.
III.6.3. Compensation for losses of income
Income losses suffered by public employees who were forced into retirement or dismissed in 1938 for racial or political reasons were compensated by various pieces of indeminification legislation for public servants, about the concrete effects of which neither qualitative nor quantitative studies exist. For income lost due to Nazi persecution of private individuals there was very scant compensation under welfare laws for victims and the Second Assistance Fund. No reference was made to the actual amounts lost. When the person's income had been cut by more than fifty percent over three and a half years, he or she was eligible for a non-recurrent lump sum payment. Unhonoured claims like severance pay etc. were dealt with by the 7th Restitution Act.