Newsletter August 2025
Dear friends and supporters of the National Fund,
Welcome to the summer edition of our newsletter, which brings you the latest news from the National Fund and the Jewish Cemeteries Fund.
Presentation of our new book, “Flight to Palestine/Life in Israel” on 2 September
Volume 8 of the book series “Lives Remembered: Life Stories of Victims of National Socialism”, which comes in two parts, deals with the subject "Escape to Palestine/Life in Israel".
Photo: National Fund
The National Fund and the House of Austrian History warmly invite you to attend the presentation of Volume 8 of the book series “Lives Remembered. Life Stories of Victims of National Socialism” published by the National Fund, with a focus on the theme "Escape to Palestine/Life in Israel".
Two life story collections were brought together in this book – National Fund’s collection and the collection of the Institute for Jewish History in Austria. The stories contained in the two-volume publication are illustrated with a wealth of historical and recent photographs, documents and graphics tracing the escape and exile routes.
Time: Tuesday, 2 September 2025, 6:30 p.m.
Location: House of Austrian History, Neue Burg, Heldenplatz, 1010 Vienna
The book presentation will open with words of welcome by Monika Sommer, Director of the House of Austrian History, followed by introductory remarks by Hannah Lessing, Managing Director of the National Fund. Renate S. Meissner, former Scientific Director of the National Fund and editor of the book series Erinnerungen (“Lives Remembered”), will present the book. Martha Keil, Scientific Director of the Institute for Jewish History in Austria and the Former Synagogue in St. Pölten, will then speak about the life story collection. In a panel discussion on the subject “Escape to Palestine/Life in Israel,” contemporary witness Kurt Meir Figdor, descendant Yuval Yaary and historian Helga Embacher will talk about their experiences, moderated by Tim Cupal (ORF). Shira Karmon will provide the musical accompaniment. Afterwards, guests are invited to join the National Fund and the House of Austrian History for bread and wine.
Simon Wiesenthal Prize Award Ceremony, 18 September 2025
The award ceremony will take place on 18 September 2025 at the Austrian Parliament.
Photo: © Erich Lessing/Lessingimages Vienna
The National Fund received around 230 entries for this year’s Simon Wiesenthal Prize, which is endowed with 30,000 euros, originating from 32 countries worldwide. The youngest candidate is 15, the oldest 98. From this pool of entries, the jury has nominated ten individuals and organisations for the prize. In addition, special tribute will be paid to nine contemporary witnesses during the award ceremony. The announcement of the winners and tribute to the contemporary witnesses will take place on 18 September 2025 at 5 p.m. during an event in Parliament, which will be livestreamed in the Parliament's media library and on the Simon Wiesenthal Prize website.
Click here to see the nominees for the Simon Wiesenthal Prize 2024.
30th anniversary of the National Fund – ceremony to be held in the autumn
Facsimile of the first page of Federal Law Gazette 432/1995; source: Federal Legal Information System
Photo: National Fund
In 2025, Austria is celebrating several important anniversaries, including 80 years of liberation from National Socialism, 70 years of the State Treaty and 30 years of EU membership. The National Fund is also celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. On 27 April 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and thus the restoration of the Republic of Austria, the Law on the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, which was promulgated 30 years ago, came into force. To mark this occasion, a ceremony will be held in the Austrian Parliament this autumn, at which representatives of the Republic, victims' associations and civil society will come together to celebrate the National Fund’s anniversary.
Further information and statements on the 30th anniversary of the National Fund can be found here.
Roma and Sinti Memorial Day 2025
Photos of the events held to mark Roma and Sinti Memorial Day 2025 in Vienna and Lackenbach
Photos: Parlamentsdirektion/Johannes Zinner, BMI/Tobias Bosina
The atrocities committed against the Roma and Sinti during the Second World War were commemorated on 2 August 2025 as part of the National Holocaust Memorial Day for Sinti and Roma. In particular, the victims of the “Gypsy camp” at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was liquidated during the night of 2 to 3 August 1944, were remembered.
Several events were held on this day of remembrance to keep alive the memory of the murdered Roma and Romnja, Sinti and Sintizze and to take a stand against racism and discrimination:
- A commemorative event organised by the Parliament and the Ethnic Groups Advisory Board took place in the Weiheraum of the Outer Burgtor in Vienna on Friday, 1 August at 10:00 a.m. The Second President of the National Council, Peter Haubner, and National Fund Managing Director Judith Pfeffer took part. The event was accompanied by a minute’s silence and the laying of wreaths.
- At 10:30 a.m., at the invitation of the Ministry of the Interior, a commemorative event took place in Lackenbach in Burgenland, where a detention camp for Roma and Sinti had existed during the Nazi era. National Fund Managing Director Hannah Lessing attended this event.
- On Ceija-Stojka-Platz, named after the Austrian Roma activist, the Student Union of Austrian Roma and Romnja (HÖR) held a memorial service at 6 p.m. for the approximately 500,000 Roma and Sinti murdered in the Porajmos.
- At the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the Sinti and Roma victims were commemorated in an international memorial service at 12 noon on 2 August 2025, marking the 81st anniversary of the dissolution of the "gypsy camp".
Central memorial site for Roma and Sinti
The amendment to the National Fund Law, Federal Law Gazette I No. 157/2023, saw the National Fund entrusted with the planning, construction and maintenance of a memorial for the Roma and Sinti victims of the Nazi regime.
On Roma and Sinti Memorial Day 2025, the Second President of the National Council and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Fund, Peter Haubner, as well as the two Managing Directors of the National Fund, Hannah Lessing and Judith Pfeffer, emphasised that the establishment of the memorial is a further act of recognition and an expression of historical responsibility towards the victims of National Socialism from the ranks of the Rom:nja and Sinti:zze. All those involved attach particular importance to careful preparatory work in order to place the subsequent implementation process on a solid, mutually supported foundation.
Exhibition opening in Budapest
The exhibition "From Repression to Remembrance" is on display in Budapest until the end of September.
Photo: Noa Schiller
On 11 July 2025, our travelling exhibition “ Vom Vergessen zum Erinnern | From Repression to Remembrance” was opened in the synagogue on Páva Street in Budapest. The opening took place within the scope of the National Fund-sponsored Centropa Summer Academy 2025, during which around 70 teachers from over 15 countries explored key sites of Jewish and European history between Budapest and Belgrade on an eight-day trip from 9 to 16 July.
Hannah Lessing, Managing Director of the National Fund, discussed “Holocaust Remembrance and Education in Europe, the US and Israel” with other experts during the Summer Academy and then presented the National Fund’s travelling exhibition.
The German and English-language exhibition can be viewed until the end of September in the synagogue on Páva Street in Budapest.
We would like to thank the Austrian Cultural Forum Budapest, Centropa and the Holocaust Memorial Centre for the successful partnership!
Presentation of the Final Report of the Arbitration Panel
The Final Report of the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution and Volume 8 of the Decisions of the Arbitration Panel are published by Facultas Verlag.
Photo: Facultas
On 18 June 2025, the Final Report of the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution and Volume 8 of its decisions were presented at the Juridicum in Vienna. The Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution was established in 2001 with the General Settlement Fund and could recommend, in accordance with the General Settlement Fund Law, the restitution of real estate, superstructures, as well as movable property (particularly cultural and religious items) belonging to Jewish communal organisations, if the assets in question had been seized during the Nazi era and were under public ownership on 17 January 2001. In its 20 years of work, the Arbitration Panel issued 1,582 decisions and recommended the restitution of assets with a total value of around 48 million euros.
The Final Report of the Arbitration Panel is now available in German and English in book form. This publication documents the circumstances and events leading to the Panel’s establishment, describes the diverse challenges that arose during the historical and legal processing of the applications, and comprehensively evaluates the results of the most recent Austrian compensation program seeking to redress material losses from the Nazi era. Volume 8 of the book series “Decisions of the Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution” was also presented at the event.
A detailed report of the event with a picture gallery can be found here.
National Fund bodies and Simon Wiesenthal Prize jury reappointed
In June 2025, the Board of Trustees of the National Fund and the Cemeteries Fund met for the first time in the current legislative period, chaired by the Second President of the National Council, Peter Haubner. Prior to this, the Main Committee of the National Council had elected twelve members of the Board of Trustees from the fields of politics, culture, science and representatives of Nazi victims, including representatives of the parliamentary parties, the Jewish Community, the Mauthausen Memorial, the Roma community, the Protestant and Catholic churches and the State Archives. In addition to the members appointed by the Main Committee, the Board of Trustees includes ex lege the Presidents of the National Council and members of the Federal Government.
Following unanimous approval by the Main Committee, the Board of Trustees reappointed Clemens Jabloner, Susanne Janistyn-Novák and Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff as members of the National Fund Committee. They had already held these positions during the previous legislative period. Other members of the committee are Peter Haubner, Doris Bures, Brigitte Bailer, Gerald Lamprecht, Otto Hochreiter and Ljiljana Radonić.
The jury for the Simon Wiesenthal Prize, which is awarded annually by the National Fund, will continue to be chaired by Katharina von Schnurbein.
Project funding
On 12 June 2025, the Board of Trustees of the National Fund approved funding for a total of around 150 project funding applications in the amount of around €750,000 and for nine social/socio-medical programmes for victims of National Socialism amounting to around €500,000.
Since 1996, the National Fund has funded a total of over 3,200 projects and programmes with approximately 41 million euros. An overview of all projects and programmes funded by the National Fund can be found in our project database.
The current deadline for filing project funding applications is 1 September 2025.
Thematic focus for project funding in 2026
On the recommendation of the National Fund Committee, the thematic focus introduced in 2025 for projects that serve to identify and combat disinformation in online media will be continued in 2026. The focus will be primarily on projects that aim to counter disinformation that relativises the Holocaust or undermines the culture of remembrance. As was the case this year, one third of the total project funding budget will continue to be allocated to this area in the coming year.
Memorial service and youth exchange
Since 2024, the National Fund has been providing financial support to memorial service participants during their assignments abroad at around 100 locations in over 30 countries worldwide. Since then, 167 memorial service participants have been supported with a total of around 470,000 euros. In addition, the National Fund has supported international exchange programmes for young people to the tune of around 60,000 euros. (As of 6 August 2025).
New restoration projects at the Jewish Cemetery in Währing and Gate IV of the Vienna Central Cemetery
A gravestone at the Jewish Cemetery in Währing.
Photo: Parliamentary Administration/Johannes Zinner
At its meeting on 12 June 2025, the Board of Trustees of the Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria approved subsidies in the amount of around 1.5 million euros for projects to restore Jewish cemeteries in Vienna. The cemeteries in question are the Währing Cemetery and Gate 4 of the Vienna Central Cemetery.
The funding application for the Jewish Cemetery in Währing covers the renovation of section 13. This includes ensuring safe public access and preserving approximately 259 gravestones in rows 6 to 11 of this section. The planned measures include cleaning the gravestones, restoring the stonework, numbering the gravestones with permanently legible aluminium signs in accordance with the grave list and plan, and comprehensive documentation of the restoration steps. Around 255,000 euros have been approved for this restoration project.
The funding application for the Jewish Cemetery at Gate IV of the Vienna Central Cemetery covers the renovation of the roofs and roof areas of the following structures: arcades, wall crowns, ceremonial hall and dome, as well as residential buildings and outbuildings. Around €1.3 million has been approved for this restoration project.
Educational project in St. Pölten: In cooperation with the Institute for Jewish History in Austria (Injoest), the National Fund is running workshops for teachers from local schools, involving the renovated new Jewish cemetery (Karlstettner Straße 3, St. Pölten) and the art project currently being implemented at the old Jewish cemetery (Pernerstorfer Platz, St. Pölten), in order to explore Jewish history as part of their city’s history and to anchor the two Jewish cemeteries in St. Pölten and local Jewish history in the cultural memory of the city and the region.
The next workshop is taking place on 26 September 2025.
We hope you are enjoying your summer and look forward to welcoming you to the upcoming events. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions!
Your team at the National Fund