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Stuart Eizenstat, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State for Holocaust Issue Statement released by the Department of the Treasury, March 20, 2000

Secretary Albright has asked me to be in touch with appropriate officials to discuss how the new Austrian Government plans to handle unresolved issues from World War II and the Holocaust. Accordingly, I have just had a meeting with Dr. Maria Schaumayer, who is Austria's representative on forced labor compensation. Dr. Schaumayer and I had a very successful first meeting. It was very productive substantively. We agreed to work closely together in this historic effort.

She outlined for me how the Austrian Government and Austrian industry plan to handle forced and slave labor. It was clear from her presentation that a great deal of work has already been done. She confirmed that the Austrian Government wishes to move quickly because of the advanced age of the survivors.

The Austrian effort will be a joint effort with Austrian industry. There would be parliamentary legislation to establish a new Austrian fund. She outlined her ideas for an Austrian fund that would compensate forced laborers who worked on Austrian territory. In addition, she anticipates that the German Foundation would cover slave laborers in concentration camps. However, the Austrian fund would seek to cover Hungarian Jews who lived in concentration-camp-like conditions but were not concentration camp inmates.

She noted that forced laborers often worked in both agriculture and industry and that the Austrian effort would seek to encompass both kinds of labor. She said that Austria would make every effort to parallel the levels of compensation planned by the German Foundation.

She noted that she had already had discussions with representatives of victims' organizations from central and eastern Europe and would be in contact with the Reconciliation Foundations in these countries on the management of disbursement of funds.

We also discussed the very important issue of legal closure. I described how legal closure would work in the German context and how it might be relevant to the issue of Austrian forced labor.

Dr. Schaumayer also outlined her timetable for action. She said that she hoped that if the question of legal peace can be resolved the parliament could pass a law by July, and the fund could be operational within several months thereafter.

Regarding restitution, which I raised, she said that this was a separate issue, and her mandate was limited to slave and forced labor. I noted other issues that need to be addressed, including compensation for long-term leased apartments of Austrian Jews, insurance policies, art restitution, and the desirability of preserving documents from this period.

She described what Austria was doing in this regard and said that the Austrian Government is ready to tackle these issues as soon as the slave and forced labor matter is well underway. She confirmed the intent of the Austrian Government to consider interim solutions in the matter of restitution.

To accelerate our efforts and given the advanced age of the victims, we agreed that we should schedule two meetings by the middle of May, one in Washington and one in Austria, to continue our discussions.

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