Tovarich Goldsnow,
I guess our American audience knows pretty well how the so-called American Dream works.... So, I've found it useful and instructive to give it the flavor of the European Dream. So, here's the unseen side of Herr Jorg Haider's success story --or how to make a bundle without messing about with venture capital, innovative ideas, corporate red tape, and Nasdaq (or is it Neue Markt??)!
Jewish professor says Haider fortune 'stinks' Party leader's wealth said to originate from a Jewish-held property
By Matthew Kalman
USA TODAY
JERUSALEM -- A Jewish professor whose family estate financed the career of controversial Austrian politician Joerg Haider said Monday that the loss of the property 'stinks.'
Alexander Roifer, professor of biblical studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was heir to the 3,700-acre estate in Klagenfurt, Austria. His mother, Matilde, was forced to give up the estate by the Nazis because she was Jewish.
It was then bought by Josef Webhofer, who left it to his son Wilhelm. In 1986, Wilhelm Webhofer signed it over as a gift to his great-nephew, Joerg Haider, leader of the right-wing Freedom Party.
Worth about $16 million, the hunting, fishing, shooting and logging estate is the basis of the fortune that makes Haider one of Austria's wealthiest men. Much of the income is derived from timber.
Roifer, from his home in a suburb of low-rise apartments in northern Jerusalem, says his mother had to sell the estate for a fraction of its value, and didn't discover that she had been tricked into giving it up until it was too late.
'I am certainly not happy about what happened, but I do not wake up every morning angry about it,' says Roifer, 67. 'A man builds his life, and fortunately I have found other things to keep me busy and interested. Of course I am sorry that the Roifer forest is now the Haider forest.'
The property was sold in 1940 under duress, a common practice during the Nazi period.
'If you ask me, do we have a legal claim, the answer is no. If you ask if I think what has happened was morally right, I think it stinks,' Roifer says.
He refused to comment directly on Haider's success in forming a ruling coalition with the center-right People's Party.
'I don't think his success affects me particularly, no more or no less than any other decent person in the world,' Roifer says.
'I don't expect him to be an angel. There is a great temptation when a lot of property is involved to hide the true facts. I have no expectations.'
Roifer's father, Giorgio, a successful young businessman from Italy, bought the forest in the 1930s.
He died at age 38, soon after Adolf Hitler annexed Austria in 1938. His young widow, Matilde, and children Noemi, 10, Josef, 8, and Alexander, 6, later fled to Palestine.
'My uncle in Italy decided to sell the forest,' Roifer recalls. 'There was all sorts of virulent anti-Semitic propaganda in the press. He was under a great deal of psychological and physical duress.'
Because they were Italians, and not Austrian citizens, the family was able to sell the estate instead of it being confiscated. But the sale price -- about $1.2 million at today's prices -- was only about one-tenth of its value. When the money finally reached Italy, it was frozen until after World War II. By then, inflation had reduced its value to almost nothing.
In 1953, Roifer's mother went back to Austria to try to get a fair amount from Webhofer. To the family's surprise, he agreed to pay another $100,000. It was not until years later that the family discovered why Webhofer was so willing to pay the amount.
In 1989, Roifer says, papers were discovered at the land registry office in Klagenfurt that showed that the power of attorney his mother granted for sale of the estate was invalid.
But because the local officials were so eager to put the land into non-Jewish hands, they approved the sale anyway. 'In other words, there was no sale. Until 1953, the forest was legally ours,' Roifer says. 'That is why Webhofer agreed to pay, because he knew that if this became known, the deal would be void. When she received that money, my mother signed a paper forgoing all future claims.'
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