A Law as a Voluntary Gesture   Reconciliation, Peace and Cooperation  The Austrian Federal Law Concerning the Fund for Voluntary Payments by the Republic of Austria to Former Slave Laborers and Forced Laborers of the National Socialist Regime (Reconciliation F ... continue >>   This Time Everyone Heard  One of the criticisms leveled against the compensation payments made by the Republic of Austria at the end of the war was that many of the claim periods were too short and that many of those ... continue >>   Money Cannot Compensate  From the Committee Report of the Austrian Nationalrat continue >>   Waiver of Claims, Administrative Costs and Fund Organs  All individuals whose claims were recognized under the terms of the law were required to make a declaration irrevocably waiving any further claims against Austria and Germany and against bus ... continue >>   An Office with First-Class Personnel  The Reconciliation Fund law was to come into force as soon as it had been confirmed that the fund capital was available, in other words that legally binding promises had at least been receiv ... continue >>   Endowing the Fund  According to the audit carried out by Wirtschaftsprüfungs- und Steuerberatungsgesellschaft Alpen-Treuhand, the funds raised for the Austrian Reconciliation Fund as of December 13, 2003 were ... continue >>   Money for 20,000 People on the First Day  From the outset, the management the Reconciliation Fund office was determined to use the period in which legal peace had not yet been guaranteed to prepare thoroughly for the first payments. ... continue >>   German Foundation—Austrian Fund  The Legal Differences between the Two Instruments continue >>   Soviet Citizens: Filtration Papers Helped  The office of the Reconciliation Fund dealt with two types of applications: those that had been forwarded as collective lists by the partner organizations and those that applicants had submi ... continue >>   Poland and Czech Republic: Great Differences  Retired ambassador Erich Maximilian Schmid, who in addition to a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna also holds a master of arts from Chicago, supervised the spot checks in Poland ... continue >>   Hungarians and Romanians: Many Were Cheated Twice  There were surprises of a different nature in Hungary. Originally, it had been expected that most applications would be submitted by Jews deported to Austria to construct the South Eastern D ... continue >>   Listening and Working Little Miracles  In actual fact, the main task of the desk officers at the Viennese office was to carefully process all those individual cases submitted in the form of direct applications, mainly from countr ... continue >>   "The One with the Gun" Was Sent Away  Rafetseder has collected a large number of photographs from the period and points out something that does not always come to mind immediately. "Most of the photos look nice and harmless, but ... continue >>   The Bottom Fell Out of His World in Vienna  Experiences such as these make it easy to understand why after working for the Reconciliation Fund Thomas Herko made his own personal commitment to "live a life based on respect for human di ... continue >>   Hearts and Minds Rejoice  By the middle of 2003, more than 100,000 people had received compensation payments from the Reconciliation Fund. In the meantime, the closing date for applications had once again been extend ... continue >>