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Background: Austrian courts are carrying out investigations against some 1,100 people believed to have participated in executions and murders of jews during the war, Herr Wiesenthal, head of the documentation centre of persecuted jews under the nazi regime, said here today-
Herr Wiesenthal told a press conference that over 100 of them were still in active service with the austrian police, gendarmerie or other state offices.

Citing parts of a memorandum which Herr Wiesenthal handed over to the austrian chancellor Dr. Josef Klaus a few weeks ago, Herr Wiesenthal said that over 8.5 per cent of the total former austrian population had participated in the - jewish tradegy between 1938 and 1945 in which some three million jews had been liquidated.

Herr Wiesenthal said it is proved that
1. the liquidation measures against the jews had begun in large scale on the territory of austria.

2. that these measure had mainly been carried out by the austrian nazis -- there had been a total of some 600,000 austrians who joined party --
3. that the planning of the killings of jews in Austria and in the european countries occupied by german as well as the responsibility for carrying out these plans had partly been in the hands of austrians.

4. that austrians had functions an all important offices of the nazi party the SS, the Gestapo, the security police (SD) and other organisations which had been concerned with the extermination of jews.

Herr Wiesenthal accused the austrian authorities for neglecting the situation partly because of the political constellation in the past 20 years. He gave several examples: police began investigations against some 40 persons in austria only recently, although it had been known for years they had been members of the unit guarding the oswieczin (Auschwitz) concentration camp. Numerous austrians had been with the commands and the guard units of the concentration camps at Theresienstadt, Magdanek, Dachau, Buschenwald etc. over 100 of them were known by name.

An Asurtain police officer was awarded a high decoration by the president recently for 25 years service rendered to the republic although his services included seven years with the gestapo, eight years as a fitter and one year he had been hiding in a hay-loft after the war.

A head master of a school in carinthia who had been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by an italian court on charges of mass executions was still in office as he was being protected by local authorities.