Report: Poland Only EU Country Without Law Returning Jewish Property
Image by getty images
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A think tank that monitors Holocaust restitution issues reported that Poland is the only European Union nation that does not comply with an international understanding allowing for the return of Jewish property seized during World War II.
The report by the European Shoah Legacy Institute notes that the countries of Western Europe developed legislation after the war that regulated the return of Jewish property. However, Poland and Bosnia-Herzegovina “stand alone as the only countries that have failed to establish a comprehensive private property restitution regime for property taken either during the Holocaust or Communist eras.”
American Jews and non-Jews of former Polish citizenship, for example, have long complained that Poland’s restitution system is “especially cumbersome, challenging, time consuming and expensive for claimants outside of Poland,” as the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for Holocaust issues explained in 2015.
The study, said to be the most comprehensive ever of immovable property restitution, found that most Western European states have complied or substantially complied with the principles of the Terezin Declaration, the 2009 agreement by 60 countries that pledged to create laws that would help return plundered assets to Jewish victims and their heirs.
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 need 500 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.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
