Funding reluctance could jeopardise Wiesenthal Institute

The Austrian government’s reluctance to provide adequate funding could jeopardise the creation of a new Holocaust research center in honour of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal.

Representatives of Vienna’s Jewish community today said the federal government’s reluctance to pay half of the approximately 10 million euros (£6.9million) needed to set up the centre, as well as the annual fee of 2.5 million euros (£1.7million) to maintain it, could also mean that records Wiesenthal amassed over decades of hunting Nazis may leave Vienna for centres in Los Angeles or Jerusalem, said Anton Pelinka, one of the project leaders.