Peter LLC grew up in the Mojave Desert, not far from the world’s first Del Taco in Barstow. He now lives with his wife in Vienna, Austria where he ekes out a living paying close attention to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues. When not fighting with the French and Russian delegations for a seat in the back row, Mr. LLC enjoys noodling on the guitar while watching dubbed re-runs of CSI: Miami, pushing his mountain bike through the Vienna Woods, choking on Ronan’s dust on hikes in the Alps and eating bulgogi. 

BCC has kindly consented to host his guest posts for the next two weeks. He reckons he will begin with something of a vignette of life in Vienna as an introduction.

Just when you thought you knew your neighbors–better the devil you know, after all–they go and turn the tables on you.

At least that’s what the Green Party must have thought when Peter Westenthaler, chairman of the right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), introduced a parliamentary resolution yesterday “concerning the restoration and maintenance of Jewish Cemeteries in Austria.” Citing Article 8 of the 2001 Washington Agreement between the US and Austria concerning the settlement of issues in connection with compensation and restitution for victims of National Socialism which commits Austria to vaguely defined “additional support” for the restoration of known and unknown Jewish cemeteries in Austria, Westenthaler called for on the federal government to get cracking on its commitments.

If Westenthaler has his way, the government would, in cooperation with the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde (~ Jewish community), determine the actual number of cemeteries by the end of 2008, restore and make accessible all cemeteries within the next year, forge a work- and cost-sharing agreement with the IK by 2015 and ensure co-financing with at least 33% coming from the affected provinces and cities. 

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the source of this fresh impetus when even (especially?) Austria’s mainstream parties have honed restitution-related foot-dragging to an art–why would the right wing take the lead on such an issue, out-greening the Green party while it’s at it? To be fair to the BZÖ, part of the reason the infamous Jörg Haider formed the party was to ditch the nationalist baggage of his old Freedom Party (which incidentally will be taking part in tonight’s ceremony in honor of the fallen Wehrmacht comrades–whose final resting areas are much nicer, by the way–on the anniversary of Hitler’s capitulation.). And I guess that’s what the opposition is supposed to do–stick a finger in government’s eye while stealing the thunder from fellow opposition parties (the Green Party has actually been quite active on these issues). 

Whatever the motivation, it’s an idea who’s realization won’t come a minute too soon. Out of my window, I have a view of the Währinger Jewish Cemetery (after the jump click “Nächstes Bild” for a virtual tour) with its five acres containing around 8,000 graves that were laid beginning in 1784 until 1880 when the Jewish section of Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof was completed. 

The National Socialists confiscated the property during the war, destroying part of it to build a reservoir for firefighting and exhuming the remains of around 200 people for racial studies (eventually reinterred at the Zentralfriedhof). An enterprising civil servant saved the rest from further destruction by zoning the land as a bird refuge. After the war the cemetery was returned, although the land for the reservoir project was ceded to the city of Vienna, which promised to maintain it as a park but ended up building subsidized housing on it instead. Ya gotta live somewhere, I suppose. 

Since then the cemetery has largely languished despite occasional initiatives to stem the decay. The issue is of course funding, an question Germany managed to settle in 1957 with the creation of a fund supported by the federal, state and local governments. In Austria, the popular sentiment seems to be for the Jewish community to take care of its own property, but it has its hands full (there are about 7,500 pairs, down from 220,000 in 1938) with 40 cemeteries and over 200,000 graves in the surrounding provinces and only has about enough funding to pay for the upkeep of the Jewish portion of the Zentralfriedhof. 

In the last couple of years the issue has gained traction and after an article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, politicians from the neighborhood level on up are talking about a solution similar to Germany’s to support the restoration efforts. It’s about time–maybe this year, the 70th anniversary of the Anschluss and the  60th anniversary of the passage of the War Graves and Memorials Act the Jewish Cemetery in Währing will get its due. 

So there you have it, a glimpse of my neighborhood, where the right wing leads the way in coming to terms with Austria’s Nazi past. Well, sort of.