Information on data processing: Proceeds from seized businesses

Terms of reference

The 1,109 entries contained in the file of the Collection Agencies A and B number 5,041 regarding surpluses resulting from the dissolution of Jewish-owned companies are not named in the index of the Collection Agencies. The file bears the slightly misleading title “Proceeds from seized businesses”, despite the fact that it instead contains records of seized cash sums which had not been used up by 1953, either by aggrieved owners (or their heirs) or by means of other measures (e.g. to pay for representatives in absentia). There were two main reasons for recording the data digitally in the Findbuch for Victims of National Socialism: a. The availability of a vast compilation documenting the continued existence after 1945 of assets, which had been seized from their rightful owners by the National Socialist Property Transaction Office (or its Liquidation Office) in Vienna up to the end of the war and b. for the listing and documentation of names. In addition, it must be noted that the available data constitutes a historical supplementation to the existing holdings of the archives of the former National Socialist Property Transaction Office at the Austrian State Archives regarding the liquidation of companies.

Digitization

The names of the businesses and the – in cases rudimentary – addresses were transferred into an electronic table: the original balance and the balance remaining following the currency reform of 1947 (75 % for amounts over 100,000 Schilling) were recorded under comments. During this process, the differences in the so called “90s accounts” – accounts into which 90 % of the surplus proceeds from a liquidation were paid, each being designated with a first letter of one of the four institutes appointed by the Property Transaction Office to monitor the liquidator – were also taken into account. In addition, the file numbers which indicate that the cash sum was still deposited with the depositary of the Higher Provincial Court Vienna in 1960 were recorded in the comments.

Revising the digitization

The discovered lists are thermo-copies which are in parts difficult to decipher. Using the “Vienna Address Directory, Lehmann’s Apartment Directory 1938”, the business names and addresses were checked and corrected if necessary. In addition, each amount which was reduced by 25 % through the currency reform of 1947 was checked and amounts which were not clearly legible were calculated using the two legible amounts. In cases where this was not possible, a corresponding note was inserted in squared brackets.

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