09. 12. 09. - 14:00
Zilk to have forest named after him
By David Rogers
Former Vienna SPÖ Mayor Helmut Zilk, who died last year, is to have a city forest named after him in Vienna-Liesing.
The
only problem is that the 1.5 hectares of land in question is not
forested. City authorities have therefore invited residents to help
plant trees and bushes there this coming Sunday.
The idea of a
Zilk forest came from foresters working in city office MA 49 under city
Social Democratic (SPÖ) environmental councillor Ulli Sima.
There
will be a ceremony at the site during which Vienna SPÖ Mayor Michael
Häupl and Zilk’s widow Dagmar Koller will dedicate the future forest
and unveil a memorial to the former mayor.
The planting will
take place as part of MA 49’s "Forest of Young Viennese" initiative
that has been greening different city areas annually for the past 25
years.
Häupl had previously announced that he would have a city square named after Zilk, who died on 24 October 2008 at the age of 81.
The
square in question has not yet been decided upon. Koller has said she
wants it to be the Albertinaplatz in front of the city’s Albertina
Museum.
The well-known actress, singer and dancer Koller turned
70 last August. She has appeared in a number of musicals, operettas and
films and has hosted the TV show "Hallo wie geht’s?" (Hi, how’s it
going?) since 1989.
Koller, who married Zilk in 1978, said
recently his death from cardiac failure had been a crushing
psychological blow. "We had a great love," she declared, adding that
she was a sad widow but would become a merry widow after her year of
mourning ended on 24 October.
Zilk was one of Austria’s most-influential politicians and regarded as one of the opinion leaders in the SPÖ.
He
was posthumously accused last spring of having worked as a spy or
informer for the secret service of the former Czechoslovakia.
Documents
revealed by the magazine Profil seemed to confirm speculation that Zilk
had earned the equivalent of a few thousand Euros by informing the
Communist country about what was going on in Austrian politics and the
media in the 1960s.
Zilk’s only son then spoke out for the first time in a long interview to defend his father's tarnished reputation.
Thomas
Zilk said: "It isn’t the first time I have heard such accusations. I
can remember very well how disappointed my father was (ten years ago)
when those rumours surfaced for the first time. I find it very
disappointing they have come up again at a time when my father is
unable to defend himself. I think those allegations were a bigger blow
to my father than the letter-bomb attack."
In December 1993,
Zilk’s left hand was severely injured when he opened a letter bomb sent
to his home in Vienna’s city centre by infamous letter-bomber Franz
Fuchs.
The Austrian Interior Ministry announced it had found
documents regarding Zilk’s activities as well. However, it was later
learned that parts of them, possibly those containing incriminating
evidence, had been destroyed or lost at some point.
