Poland Sets 6-Month Deadline For Warsaw Restitution Claims
(JTA) — The municipality of Warsaw published a list of 48 buildings claimed in now-dormant restitution suits, opening a six-month window for new claims under recent legislation.
If no action is taken on the property before the deadline, it will be transferred permanently to the city, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, wrote in a statement Wednesday about the list.
The properties in question are among the 2,613 claims that were filed with Polish authorities many years ago that have remained dormant. According to legislation from 2016, which restitution professionals opposed and criticized as too limiting to affect just restitution, claimants received six months to restart the restitution process from the day the city published details about any property.
On Wednesday, the WJRO chair of operations, Gideon Taylor, reiterated his organization’s discontent with the legislation.
“It is critical that the Polish authorities take every possible step to identify and notify potential claimants. We also call on Poland to extend the very short deadline,” he wrote.
More than 15 years after the claim filing deadline, a majority of more than 5,000 claims for such property have still not been resolved and most of the resolved claims have not led to restitution or compensation, the WJRO said.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30