Published in 2001, the book catalogued for the first time the hundreds of prominent Jewish-owned properties seized by the Nazis that were never returned, and details the names of famous beneficiaries.
[2] The second half of the book, compiled by co-author Templ, acts as a guided tour of the extent of Jewish property confiscations in Vienna under Nazism and the stories attached to them.
[4] The book exposed long-held secrets about the Nazi era in Austria, and helped initiate numerous restitution legal claims.
Co-author Templ himself became involved in a restitution case in 2005 which evolved in to a decade of legal entanglement.
[5] In 2015, Templ received a one-year sentence as punishment for having omitted the name of an estranged aunt in an application on behalf of his mother for the return of property seized from his Jewish relatives in 1938.