Tuesday April 3 3:30 PM ET
Austrian Fund Pays Out to Holocaust Survivors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An Austrian fund made its first payments to Holocaust survivors on Tuesday to compensate them for assets they lost when Austria was under Nazi rule between 1938 and 1945, a spokeswoman for a Jewish group said.

Hillary Kessler-Godin, spokeswoman for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, said about 60 people received the flat-rate sum of about $7,000 each.

They are the first of about 21,000 people eligible for payment from the first $150 million tranche of a fund that is worth $380 million.

The procedure for compensating these survivors was relatively simple because the Austrian authorities had already compiled a list of recipients when it made payments under a national fund established in 1995, Kessler-Godin said.

``We welcome this. This part was unconditional and that's really important to us,'' she said.

Some other claims will require documentary evidence that the claimant owned the assets.

Austria, following the example set by Germany and Switzerland, set up the fund earlier this year after lawyers sued the Austrian government and companies in the United States on behalf of survivors.

Under the compensation agreement, the U.S. government will advise U.S. courts to dismiss such suits, on the grounds the claimants should apply to the compensation fund.

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