Austria: Parliament agrees law to confer citizenship on descendants of Nazi victims
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Victims of the Nazis who fled Austria during the Third Reich have been given citizenship by the country’s parliament.
The children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of hundreds of thousands of Jewish people persecuted by the Nazis will be able to apply for Austrian nationality.
Previously only survivors of the Holocaust themselves had been eligible for citizenship, The Telegraph reports.
The Austrian definition of a Nazi victim also includes people who left the country up to 10 years after the end of the Second World War.
All five of the country’s parties have backed the bill, which also makes an exception to rules on dual nationality requiring that applicants reside in Austria or relinquish their existing nationality.
The head of the Israeli Cultural Association, Oskar Deutsch, said the law was “a decision of historic proportions”.
“On behalf of the Jewish communities in Austria, which until 1938 still had more than 200,000 members, I would like to express my gratitude to the ÖVP, SPÖ and Neos,” he said, referring to the parties that advanced the bill.
Photo credit: By USHMM, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, PD-US
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