of NaziRegime' 4, (NAPSA)—If you or someone you know was a forced or slave laborer of the Nazi Regime on the territory of the present-day Republic of Austria, there’s a special fund you should know about. The Austrian Reconciliation Fund Law provides for voluntary payments to individuals who were forced by the National Socialist regime to work either in industry—generally any commercial business or enterprise—oragriculture on the territory of presentday Austria. The same applies to persons who because of political motives, reasons of ancestry, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, physical or mental handicap, accusation of supposed anti-social behavior or in connection with medical experiments were coerced by the National Socialist regime to work on the territory of present-day Austria. Also eligible for payment are individuals who had been forced to do slave labor in camps similar to concentration camps under inhumaneconditions on the territory of present-day Austria. These include in particular the camps in which Jews deported from Hungary to the territory of present-day Austria in 1944-45 were confined and from which they were taken for work in metropolitan Vienna and on the “Southeast Rampart Construction.” Not eligible are former inmates of Mauthausen concentration campor its sub-camps, or the subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp, since the inmates of these camps areeligible for a payment by the German foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future.” Children who had been deported together with one or both parents as well as children who were born while the mother was a forced or slave laborer may also be eligible for payment. Heirs of victims will receive payment only if the victimsdied on or after February 15, 2000. The Austrian Reconciliation Fund has so far accepted approximately 44,000 applications from former forced and slave laborers. The deadline for filing applica- tions: November 27, 2002. To find out more, write: Austrian Reconciliation Fund, P.O. Box 44, A1011 Vienna; or go to www.recon ciliationfund.at/en.
