Information on data processing: Notifications of seized property - Upper Austria

Terms of reference

The series of files Vermögensentziehungsanmeldungen (“Notifications of Seized Property") of the Archives of Upper Austria contains those files which were opened on the basis of the Vermögensentziehungs-Anmeldungsverordnung (abbreviated: VEAV) of 15 September 1946 (Verordnung des Bundesministeriums für Vermögenssicherung und Wirtschaftsplanung vom 15. September 1946 zur Durchführung des Gesetzes über die Erfassung arisierter und anderer im Zusammenhang mit der nationalsozialistischen Machtübernahme entzogenen Vermögenschaften ["Ordinance of the Federal Ministry for Property Control and Economic Planning of 15 September 1946 on the Implementation of the Law on the Registration of Aryanized and Other Properties Seized in Connection with the National Socialist Assumption of Power”] of 10 May 1945, State Law Gazette 10/1945, Federal Law Gazette 166/1946). The notification ordinance set out the requirements and terms for asserting claims to a property seized between 1938 and 1945. For the Findbuch, only the information on the aggrieved person was adopted, not information on the person filing the notification or on the person who had acquired the properties. This information can, however, be accessed by retrieving the relevant file.

Digitization

The data in the file series “Notifications of Seized Property of the Archives of Upper Austria” was taken from the access database “aryanization”, which was set up by the Office of the Upper Austrian Provincial Government on 17.10.2002 and incorporated as Part 3 (in addition to Part 1 BVVR and Part 2 RK Linz) under the title RSTG (“Restitution, notification of the district administrative authorities”). This part of the database comprises 3,309 records and was adapted to meet the requirements of the Findbuch in several stages. During the course of this work the title of this series was changed to VEAV – Vermögensentziehungsanmeldung OÖ (“Ordinance on the Notification of Seized Property – Notification of Seized Property Upper Austria”) at the suggestion of the Archives of Upper Austria.

Processing the digitized data

The present excel document was edited and revised between October and December 2011. During this process, the following columns were deleted: GESCHA (name-aggrieved person-amendment), ORTA (address-place-aggrieved person-amendment), STRA (address-street-aggrieved person-amendment), ERW (name-acquirer), VORN (forename-acquirer), ORTE (address-place-acquirer), STRE (address-street-acquirer), ERWA (name-acquirer-amendment), ORTEA (address-place-acquirer-change), STREA (address-street-acquirer-amendment), NAME (name-declarant), VNAME (forename-declarant), ORTANM (address-place-declarant), STRANM (address-street-declarant), four columns with references to file numbers of Property Control (VSUMS, VSGES, VSI, VS), cross-reference to Provincial Court-Linz-Closure (ABS), general additional information (MEMO), land register object (GRUNDBUCH), sub-number (SUBNR), identification system (IDSYS) and suspicion (VERDACHT).

In a further step, the column rows on “natural” or “legal” person were attributed to the data on aggrieved persons and the spellings were standardized. New columns on type of file, holdings, file number, signature, archive and data source were introduced and the columns “Federal province-aggrieved person” and “country-aggrieved person” were added to supplement the column “district-aggrieved person”.

The following columns were summarized in the remarks field for the subject field:

• Object: comprised of the columns KG (cadastral district), Parz. (property parcel, address), EZ (register number), regarding the object seized after 1938.
• Proceedings: comprised of the columns ABSA (type of closure Provincial Court Linz) and RK (Restitution Commission file no. Provincial Court Linz), regarding the subsequent procedure and decision on each notification.

The following criteria were applied when editing the whole data holdings: obvious spelling mistakes were corrected. Abbreviated place names were written out in full. Domestic addresses were attributed a district, and non-Austrian addresses a country in order to able to identify their geographical location more easily. The standards for processing the data which were developed by convention in the project team were also applied.

When several historical persons were entered in the column for aggrieved persons, each was entered in its own row. Due to this redistribution, the file series contains a new total of 4,120 records (previously 3,309).
The file series is stored in 29 boxes and contains files opened between 1946 and 1961. When ordering from these holdings at the Archives of Upper Austria, in addition to stating the title of the holdings, “Notification of Seized Property”, the box number must also be given. Further information such as the AKTNR (file number) or the FASZ (fascicle) are not a requirement but may facilitate the search for the users.