© AP
Nearly 26,000 people persecuted by the former Nazi regime in Germany or their descendants have been granted Austrian citizenship since 2019. Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said this on Tuesday.
Source: BELGA
Yesterday at 6:19 PM
“Austrian citizenship gives back an important part of their family history to many descendants of people who were cruelly deprived of their identity decades ago,” Schallenberg said at the presentation in Vienna of a book about the fate of fifteen new citizens.
The move to grant citizenship to people mainly from the United States, Israel and Britain is a sign of confidence in the country, the foreign minister said. The Austrian National Council, the lower house of parliament, unanimously amended the citizenship law in 2019 to make that possible.
Amid growing anti-Semitism in Europe, Austria is a country that is clearly on Israel’s side, said Oskar Deutsch, the president of the Jewish Community of Vienna. “Austria can increasingly be seen as a safe haven for Jews.” That is not self-evident given the decades-long denial of shared responsibility for the Holocaust, Deutsch added.
Austria has long seen itself as the first victim of dictator Adolf Hitler. It was not until 1991 that then-Chancellor Franz Vranitzky became the first head of government to openly express regret for Austrian complicity in Nazi atrocities.