The Austrian Reconciliation Fund
The staff of the Austrian Reconciliation Fund at its Vienna office: a highly motivated, competent, multilingual team that put heart and soul into their work.  
The Austrian Fund for Reconciliation, Peace and Cooperation (sometimes abbreviated to "Reconciliation Fund") was established in 2000 to disburse the voluntary payments made by the Republic of Austria to victims of Nazi forced labor.

It was clear from the outset that these payments could never make up for the injustice suffered by these men and women or for the lost years of their youth. It was therefore all the more important that this gesture of recognition and solidarity on the part of the younger generation be offered to the victims respectfully and in a spirit of sincere and genuine friendship.

It was a basic principle of the Reconciliation Fund's work that victims would be guaranteed uninterrupted communication in their own language. As a result, 22 different languages were used on a daily basis by the small, but highly efficient office in Vienna. It was equally clear that it would be left to the victims to decide how intensively they wanted to communicate with the staff of the Reconciliation Fund. Those who wanted to talk or write about the bitter years of forced labor would not be hindered. However, those who were less willing to do so because each memory brought the dark shadows of the past to life again, could expect to have their case processed with the same care and attention. The questionnaire (in several languages) was designed to provide assistance to the victims. It was not an administrative condition for the award of any payment. If applications containing only minimal details were approved, this was due both to the attentiveness with which the team members listened and to the extremely efficient work carried out by the archives in the nine provinces, by insurance institutions, the Mauthausen Memorial at the Ministry of the Interior and the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross in Bad Arolsen. They and other agencies provided valuable assistance to the Reconciliation Fund during its research work.

Some 132,000 men and women from all over the world accepted this gesture from Austria. In the implementation of the program use was also made of modern communications technologies.

If you would like to view the version of the website that was in use while the Reconciliation Fund was carrying out its work, please follow the link http://www.reconciliationfund.at/2001-2005
 
  Reconciliation Fund Law




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