Austrian MPs vote down bill that would have granted passports to the descendants of Nazi victims

Austria’s governing parties on Thursday voted down two bills brought by the opposition in parliament that would have granted citizenship to the children and grandchildren of the Nazis’ victims.

At present, only former Austrian citizens who were forced to leave before the end of the Second World War because of Nazi persecution or for supporting the democratic Republic of Austria can reclaim stolen citizenship.

But Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had told the JC in an exclusive interview last November that he wanted to amend this to “give all children and grandchildren of Holocaust victims the opportunity to become Austrian citizens if they want to.”

Yet parliamentarians from both Mr Kurz’s People’s Party and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) voted in committee to defer bills brought by the Social Democratic Party and the liberal NEOS that would have facilitated the unprecedented change.

Both bills would have made it easier for second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors to get an Austrian passport by amending the citizenship law, removing existing residency requirements and the need to renounce one’s existing citizenship.

Before the vote, SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner condemned the government for not bringing about these changes sooner, arguing an important opportunity was missed during the memorial year of 2018 — marking 80 years since the Anschluss and Kristallnacht — to “send an important signal.”

She called the committee vote a “litmus test” by which the government’s desire to “eliminate injustice” could be judged.

After the government deferred her bill, NEOS home affairs spokesperson Stephanie Krisper said it was “a slap in the face and show of disrespect towards the victims of National Socialism and their descendants.”

Extending to second- and third-generation Holocaust survivors the right to obtain Austrian passport nonetheless remains government policy.

Prompted by the opposition’s bills, FPÖ interior minister Herbert Kickl announced they would bring forward their own draft legislation on the matter by the end of 2019.