Austria closed a fund that offered compensation to victims of the Nazis on Tuesday, announcing that the program had “fully completed its tasks.”
The fund was set up in 2001 to allocate $215 million as restitution for property looted and then purchased after World War II.
“The dissolution of the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism… marks the completion of one of Austria’s largest-scale projects to provide restitution and compensation for Nazi-seized assets,” said a statement reported by AFP.
The fund oversaw more than 30,000 claims made by victims of the Nazis or their descendants. Over 2,300 applications were submitted, to which 140 met the criteria for a claim.
“The General Settlement Fund made [payments] of $215 million in total. Around 25,000 beneficiaries received a payment from the General Settlement Fund,” the statement said.
The fund investigated cases where property purchased after the war by municipalities or the Austrian government had been looted by the Nazis from Austrian Jews during the country’s annexation by Nazi Germany.
Austria opened the compensation fund after decades of criticism for refusing to investigate claims by survivors and their descendants. The country was taken to court by survivors and their descendants in the United States, who accused post-war owners of properties of owning the assets of Jews through which they became wealthy after the war.