Polish President Andrzej Duda approved a law on Saturday August 14 that will considerably limit the possibilities of requests for the return of property confiscated after the Second World War in Poland.
This new legislation, validated Wednesday by the Polish Parliament, imposes a limitation period of thirty years to claim looted property, generally confiscated by the communist regime after the war. However, most of them concern the Polish Jewish community or its descendants.
President Duda told Polish news agency PAP that he hoped this law would end “An era of legal chaos” and to “The privatization mafia”. According to the Polish government, this new legislation will restore legal certainty in the real estate market and prevent fraudulent claims.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced on Saturday that he had recalled the charge d’affaires of the Israeli embassy in Warsaw, denouncing ” an immoral and anti-Semitic law ”. “This is a serious measure to which Israel cannot remain indifferent”, reacted for his part the Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, calling the law “Shameful”, proof of a “Scandalous disregard for the memory of the Holocaust”.
Six million Poles killed
Mr. Lapid also said his ministry is advising the Polish Ambassador to Israel, who is currently on vacation, “To stay on vacation in your country”. “He should use the time he has to explain to the Poles what the Holocaust means to the Israelis”, he said. “Poland has tonight become an anti-democratic and anti-liberal country which does not respect the greatest tragedy in human history”, again assaulted Mr. Lapid.
Poland “Will not pay for Germany’s crimes”, reacted this week the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Six million Poles, half of whom were Jews, were killed during World War II in Poland. After the war, the Communist authorities nationalized a large number of properties that had remained empty because their owners had been killed or had fled the country. When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, Poland did not organize the restitution of looted property, as did most of the other countries of the Communist bloc, letting individuals try their luck in court.
While the new legislation covers both Jewish and non-Jewish restitution claims, opponents of the law believe it will disproportionately affect Jews, as they were often late in asserting their rights after the war.
“Poland is not, of course, responsible for what Nazi Germany did during the Holocaust. However, Poland continues to benefit from goods it has wrongly acquired ”, the World Organization for the Restitution of Jewish Property (WJRO) said in a statement. “Returning property is more than just money, for many Holocaust survivors and their families a home is the last physical link to the life they once led”, argued the Organization.