ABSTRACT
The most compelling and fine-tuned psychological portrait of postwar Austria's disinterest in and resistance to restitution of "Aryanized" Jewish property can be found in Anna Mitgutsch's fascinating novel Haus der Kindheit. Hundreds of Austrians participated in the dehumanization and massacring of Jews in the final weeks of the war in April/May 1945. While the "economics of discrimination" practiced against some 200,000 Austrian Jews enriched numerous Austrian individuals and corporations, it also hurt the Austrian economy as a whole considerably. Case studies on "Aryanization", banks, insurance companies, forced labor and art theft demonstrate this rich web of discriminatory practices which resulted in personal enrichment for many Austrian Nazis. Garscha and Kuretsidis-Haider have also organized a working group in Vienna to systematically collect and make accessible to researchers all these postwar court records relating to Nazi war crimes.
