As published in
the Jewish Chronicle online and in print.
The case of the Schlesinger Twins was highlighted as an example of the broken, corrupt Austrian system.
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By Toby Axelrod, October 8, 2015
Outrage is mounting following the
jailing of an Austrian Jewish writer who tried to claim compensation from the Austrian state over the theft of his ancestors' home by the Nazis in 1938.
Stephan Templ, who in 2001 published a critical book about
restitution in Austria, was incarcerated this week and is to remain in
jail for one year, convicted of having defrauded the state.
Mr Templ, 54, was accused of deliberately failing to inform the state
about his aunt - a potential claimant - when he initiated his
restitution case.
A state prosecutor accused Mr Templ of defrauding Austria on the
grounds that had his aunt chosen not to claim her share of the
restitution money, it could have gone to the state.
In a statement published on their website, Mr Templ's London-based
lawyers, Amsterdam & Partners, said: "[The court claimed that] by
not naming his aunt in the application for restitution - something there
was no obligation to do and the results of which he could not have foreseen -
Templ had aimed to deceive the restitution panel. This argument runs
contrary to both the restitution and criminal laws of Austria, as well
as universal legal principles."
Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Centre,
called the jailing "absolutely outrageous". He was one of 75 historians
from around the world who signed a letter protesting against the
sentence. The letter was sent to Hans Peter Manz, Austrian ambassador to
the US, on September 21. As yet there has been no response.
Ahead of his imprisonment, Mr Templ told Haaretz his case was "Kafkaesque" and "completely absurd".
Mr Templ's crime was "his omission of the name of an estranged
relative from his application for the return of his family's seized
property", the 75 historians wrote. "This matter could have been
resolved by the Templ family in civil court."
The ADL has become involved, with its new national director, Jonathan
Greenblatt, appealing to Austrian President Heinz Fischer for a pardon.
According to the BBC, Austrian journalist Karl Pfeifer has said he
believed Mr Templ was prosecuted and jailed because "he touched a nerve
with his book, which reminded the Austrians of how they stole Jewish
property".
The case dates to 2005, when, on behalf of his Shoah-survivor mother,
Mr Templ applied for the restitution of a former sanatorium in Vienna
that the Nazis had confiscated from their ancestor, Lothar Fürth
Mr Templ's mother, who received €1.1 million, was one of 40 heirs to
receive compensation for their part-ownership of the building, which was
sold in 2010.
However, in April 2013, the court found Mr Templ guilty of failing to
mention another possible heir - his 84-year-old aunt, who was
reportedly estranged from his mother.
A regional court in Vienna had sentenced Mr Templ to three years in
jail for serious fraud, with the Austrian state as victim. An appeal was
rejected, but a regional court reduced the sentence to one year in jail
with two years' probation.
●
Mother’s Vienna court hell
British mother Beth Alexander first hit the headlines four years ago,
after a Viennese court awarded sole custody of her then three-year-old
twin sons to her Austrian ex-husband, Dr Michael Schlesinger – in a case
that has been labelled "tragic" and "Kafkaesque".
In 2013, an appeal to overturn the court's decision was rejected. Ms
Alexander was granted extremely limited visitation rights with her sons –
every Tuesday for six hours and every other Sunday. This was despite
the court admitting that a previous judgment denying her custody because
she suffered from mental illness was wrong.
Ms Alexander applied to take the case to Austria's Supreme Court, but was turned down.
Manchester-born Ms Alexander has repeatedly claimed she is facing
"corruption" inside the Austrian judicial system. Her case gained
international attention and support, with a website set up that charted
her struggle to see her sons, and leading figures in the community,
including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, pledging their support.
But last year, Ms Alexander faced a fresh setback. An injunction
issued by an Austrian court ordered her to remove all photos of her sons
from her campaign website, as well as any pictures posted on social
media accounts. She was also forbidden from publicising details of the
case.
Charlotte Oliver
This was the response from the Austrian Embassy the following week (17th October 2015)
STEPHAN TEMPL’S SERIOUS FRAUD CONVICTION WAS PROPER, NOT ANTISEMITIC
I would like to make the following clarifications to Toby Axelrod’s article Writer jailed for trying to reclaim Nazi-stolen loot, ( JC, Oct 9) concerning the Austrian court case of Mr Stephan Templ, and the piece by Simone Dinah Hartmann, The hate that forced my grandfather to flee Vienna is alive and well in Austria today.
Stephan Templ was convicted by the Vienna Criminal Court for serious fraud, committed during restitution proceedings.
This case has nothing to do with antisemitism or retaliation for having written a book on restitution issues. It is an ordinary criminal case of serious fraud decided by the independent Austrian judiciary. Nothing more, nothing less.
According to the courts, Mr Templ was not convicted for simply omitting the name of an estranged relative in a restitution application. On the contrary, he not only “conveniently forgot” to mention his own aunt (who lives, just like his mother, in Vienna) but he intentionally made a series of false allegations to the restitution panel, as was proven by documents and witnesses in the criminal proceedings, concealing the existence of his aunt in order to increase his mother’s share of property to be restituted.
As a result of Mr Templ’s fraud, his mother was awarded a share worth around € 1.1 million in the restituted property ( ie double the share that she would have received without the fraud).
His aunt, a Holocaust survivor herself who was unaware of her rights, missed the application deadline and thus received nothing. Mr Templ was indicted by the public prosecutor after his aunt had reported the fraudulent conduct of her nephew to the authorities.
Mr Templ was consequently convicted and sentenced to one year of prison and a probation period of two years. He began this prison term on 5th October.
As for National Socialist activities, I would like to stress that, in 1947, Austria introduced a Constitutional Law providing for sanctions for the denying, the trivialisation, the approval or the justification of National Socialist activities and National Socialist crimes against humanity, with imprisonment up to 20 years.
It goes without saying that the Republic of Austria unequivocally rejects all forms of racism, antisemitism, intolerance and other human-rights infringements.
Ridiculing the commemorations of the Holocaust which are carried out in Austria annually as an “obsession in the successor states of the National Socialist empire” is something that a journalist is free to do. We, however, do take these commemorations seriously and will continue to do so.
Martin Eichtinger,
Ambassador Austrian Embassy,
18 Belgrave Mews, SW1
