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VIENNA - Austria laid foundation stones today for the reconstruction of SC Hakoah Vienna, a Jewish sports club that was closed in the 1938 Nazi takeover of the country.
Officials said the planned 57 million euros ($110 million) complex, to include a school and synagogue, underlined the rising status of Jews in the post-war Austrian democracy after their community was all but wiped out by the Nazi Holocaust.
Ariel Muzicant, head of Austria's 6000-member Jewish community, said the Hakoah facilities to be completed in 2008 in Vienna's flagship Prater park, with partial state financing, would be the largest such Jewish centre in Europe.
"It's almost 70 years since the property was 'aryanised' by the Nazis, but just 18 months since we obtained restitution," Muzicant told reporters. "I believe this is an essential contribution to the viability of the Jewish community."
Interior Minister Liese Prokop said the rebuilding of premises for Hakoah conveyed a strong message of "normalisation for Jewish life in Austria", which has seen only isolated anti-Semitic incidents in recent decades.
In the 1920s and 1930s, more than 25,000 athletes used Hakoah's facilities and some represented Austria at Olympic and other international sport events, winning medals in a handful of disciplines especially swimming and wrestling.
Hakoah ( "strength" in Hebrew) was founded in 1909 because Jews faced legal barriers to joining other sports clubs, and it drew members from Vienna's 180,000-strong Jewish population.
Adolf Hitler's 1938 seizure of power in Austria forced Hakoah's closure and its name was erased from Vienna's records.
The original building was flattened in World War 2.
The Jewish community only regained title to the land the club stood on in 2004, following international negotiations and a settlement with Austria's finance ministry.
"Watermarks", an acclaimed 2004 documentary about Hakoah, focused on surviving members of its women's swimming team, now in old age and living in Israel, the United States and Britain.
Hakoah project chief Ronald Gelbard said other sport clubs had already inquired about training at the centre. "After many years being guests at other clubs, we can be the hosts again."
- REUTERS
