Press

“If you lose something and find it again, then you’re very pleased. In this case, people don’t even know that they have lost something, but they may find interesting things though. They’ll be able to gain a better idea of life back then, about the problems the people faced during that time. I believe it is something precious, no wonder it is being presented in the Parliament.”

“The Austrian State Archives are proud to have been able to contribute towards the successful realization of this necessary and long-overdue project through the extensive provision of fundamental historical source material.”

“As one of the central heritage institutions of this country, the Austrian National Library has for the last ten years been striving to deal with its own National Socialist past in an exemplary and transparent manner. Particularly because of the proven key role it played in National Socialist looting and confiscation, and especially in view of the obvious failures and omissions of the initial post-war years, I have followed this matter very closely since taking on my current role.

We were very pleased to have been able to support the initiative of the National Fund in establishing the online Findbuch. It is still very difficult for the descendents of many victims to receive that to which they are entitled or even just to be able to shed light on the tragic fates of their relatives. I am convinced that an important tool has been created in this respect, in the form of the Findbuch for Victims of National Socialism.“

“At the Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna, we supported the National Fund in the production of the Findbuch as a matter of course and to the very best of our ability. As an archive, we believe one of our main tasks lies in ensuring the transparency of administrative acts and political decisions for later generations. There can hardly be an undertaking that is more suited to documenting the significance of this task than this excellent research project, which centres around providing access to authentic source material and information for those persecuted and aggrieved by the Nazi regime.”

”The Findbuch is a vital step in the provision of digital access to information, which benefits both the victims of National Socialism and their descendents as well as those undertaking academic and remembrance work. For the Vienna University Library, the work carried out in cooperation with the National Fund marks a further important step towards the rigorous effort to come to terms with our own history, as we are already in the process of doing with our provenance research.”

"In the digital age, one of the key tasks is to link thematically connected holdings in various archives. Archives, libraries and other 'memory banks' should, more than ever, view each other as partners and cooperate with each other for the good of their users. In the National Fund’s Findbuch this vision has come one step closer to becoming reality. Particularly in Austria, improved networks in the field of source-based research on the Nazis’ victims are to be highly welcomed."