The family of a Holocaust survivor who fled Vienna in 1938 has filed a claim for the return of one of the country’s national treasures. The heirs of Erich Lederer, wealthy Austrian Jews who were important patrons of artist Gustav Klimt, have asked for the restitution of Klimt’s 1902 creation “Beethoven Frieze.” The claims were…
Parliamentary elections are held in Austria on Sept. 29 and polls suggest that the far right-wing Freedom Party will achieve one of the best results in its history — and may even shake the governing coalition. The Freedom Party has mostly been shunned by Jewish voters because it grew out of a federation of former…
A resurgent right-wing party keen to end taxpayer-funded bailouts of euro zone laggards takes on Austria’s political establishment in parliamentary elections on Sunday. The ruling Social Democrats (SPO) and their People’s Party (OVP) conservative partners are counting on their record in piloting the Alpine republic through the global financial crisis relatively unscathed to win another…
Russia is ready to replace peacekeepers from Austria in the Golan Heights, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, after Vienna said it would recall its troops from a U.N. monitoring force due to worsening fighting in Syria. Austria, whose peacekeepers account for about 380 of the 1,000-strong U.N. force observing a four-decade-old ceasefire between Syria…
Austria will withdraw its peacekeepers from the U.N. monitoring force on the Golan Heights given worsening fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels, it said on Thursday. Austrians account for about 380 of the 1,000-strong U.N. force monitoring a ceasefire between Syria and Israel, and their departure will deal a serious blow to the mission….
Austria cannot draw a line under its Nazi past despite the desire of many Austrians to so do, its president said on the 75th anniversary of the country’s annexation by Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler and his troops marched unopposed on March 12, 1938 into an Austria weakened by political and economic turmoil and were cheered…
The famed Vienna Philharmonic has acknowledged that many of its musicians were Nazi party members during Hitler’s rule and that its director may have delivered a prestigious orchestra award to a Nazi war criminal two decades after the end of World War Two. The orchestra, which has come under fire for covering up its history,…
Marina Plistiev, a Kyrgyzstan-born Jew, has lived in Vienna for 34 years but still doesn’t like to take public transport. She recalls the day in 1986 as a teenager when she and her four-year-old brother, whom she’d collected from school with a fever, were told to get off a tram for having the wrong tickets,…
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