Information on data processing: Property notices – Burgenland

Terms of reference

The property notices for Burgenland form part of the file series Arisierungsakten (Nordburgenland und Südburgenland) 1938–1945 (“Aryanization files [North Burgenland and South Burgenland] 1938–1945”) from the Burgenland Provincial Archives. This file series originated at the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (“Property Transaction Office”) in Vienna, established by the National Socialists at the Ministry for the Economy and Labor in May 1938. The Property Transaction Office was created in order to record the entire assets of people who were considered Jewish pursuant to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 (German Reich Law Gazette 1935 I p. 1146, Austrian Law Gazette 150/1938) and then to “aryanize” them. After the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich, the newly drawn boundaries of the Gaue (“Reich regions”) saw Burgenland split between the two neighboring Reich regions, Lower Danube and Styria. During this process, as of 15 October 1938 the northern districts Neusiedl am See, Eisenstadt, Mattersburg and Oberpullendorf were merged with the Reich region Lower Danube, and the southern districts Oberwart, Güssing and Jennersdorf joined the Reich region Styria.

After the end of the war in May 1945, Burgenland was re-established in the Soviet occupied zone. The Eisensadt authorities took on the all archive material from the Lower Austrian and Styrian Provincial Governments which related to Burgenland and had accumulated between 1938 and 1945. The Burgenland Provincial Archives attributed the file material originating from the Property Transaction Office as “Aryanization files (North Burgenland and South Burgenland) 1938–1945” to the sub-holdings Behördlichen Archivebestände (“Authorities’ archive holdings”) of the Forschungsarchiv (“Research Archive”).

140 “property notices” of Jews from North Burgenland can be found within this file series under the heading Vermögensanmeldungen NÖ, Verzeichnis über das Vermögen von Juden (“Property notices Lower Austria, list of Jewish property"), which are stored in box 67. The Province of Lower Austria handed over these files to Burgenland after 1945 with the “aryanization files”.

For the General Settlement Fund, the property notices are of fundamental importance for determining and valuing the property losses asserted in the applications.

Digitization

At the request of the General Settlement Fund, in 2002 the Burgenland Provincial Archives sent a copy of two typewritten lists of the “Aryanization files (North Burgenland and South Burgenland)”. The files are subdivided into five inventories consisting of 83 boxes with 1,320 individual files and an unknown number of documents which cannot be attributed to any particular file.

The 140 property notices of the predominantly North Burgenland Jews form inventory IV with box number 67. They are listed in a separate excel table.

Processing the digitized data

In June 2012, the Burgenland Provincial Archives conveyed to the General Settlement Fund an additional list of the “property notices” in the form of a digital image. The staff of the General Settlement Fund converted this image into an excel document and standardized it. It should be noted that this list only contained the file number, place of residence and name of the person to filing the notice. Dates of birth and other personal information was not provided. In the data entry field “remarks” of the detailed view in the Findbuch, there are sometimes references made to other – most probably related – persons and the place of residence in 1939 (place of refuge or collective apartment in Vienna).

If the property notices were assigned to the “aryanization files”, the staff of the General Settlement Fund examined whether they belonged together using the documents from the archive. This was then noted under “remarks” by entering the number of the property notice.

The formal processing standards developed by the working group were also applied.
The file series “property notices” comprises 140 records.