50 years - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2001 - 21 Shilling

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR for short, has existed since 1951 and is headquartered in Geneva. There are 280 field offices in 120 states. Forerunners were a League of Nations refugee aid and an international UN refugee organization, which existed from 1946 to 1951. UNHCR should ensure that states abide by established conventions, respect the rights of refugees and are not deported to countries where they are subjected to persecution. The organization, with its 5,000 employees, also provides the refugees with the essentials, as far as this is possible, and takes care of their medical care. In 1954 and 1981, the UNHCR received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work. Horrifying is the magnitude of the problem. Worldwide, 50 million people are affected, of which (in millions) 1.8 Kurds, 3.5 Yugoslavs, 2.7 Afghans, 1 from Kosovo, 2 from Rwanda, etc. The numbers of refugees to be handled by Austria are modest. In addition to the annually coming about 3 to 10,000 "normal" refugees were to cope: 280,000 Volksdeutsche, 200,000 Hungarians (uprising in 1956), 162,000 Czechs and Slovaks (at the end of the Prague Spring), 33,000 Poles (imposition of martial law in 1981) and strongly changing Numbers, but constantly at least 60,000 during the last Balkan conflict.