PRESENTATION OF THE BRUNO KREISKY AWARDS FOR SERVICES TO HUMAN RIGHTS

On his 65th birthday, Bruno Kreisky decided not to receive any gifts. A circle of friends and colleagues around the then Mayor of Vienna, Leopold Gratz, and the President of the Austrian Trade Union Federation, Anton Benya, developed the idea of a foundation for services to human rights, which was to bear Kreisky's name. The then financial secretary of the ÖGB, Alfred Ströer, who had been imprisoned during the Nazi era, took on the realisation and administration of this project.

At that time, Austria's perception of international human rights issues was dominated by the crimes of dictatorial regimes in Central and South America, oppression in the communist system and the incipient CSCE process, the apartheid system in southern Africa, but also the underdevelopment of the southern hemisphere and the North-South conflict.

Bruno Kreisky was imprisoned for 15 months by the Schuschnigg regime in 1935 and for a further five months by the National Socialists in 1938, before being forced into exile in Sweden, from where he did not return until 1951. This experience shaped his political life, particularly in relation to dictatorial regimes, human rights violations and asylum seekers.