Senate sends Poles letter on Holocaust

WARSAW, Poland — Fifty-nine U.S. senators have called on the Polish prime minister to support legislation that would allow Holocaust victims and their heirs to receive compensation for property that was seized by the Germans during World War II and later nationalized by the communists.

In a letter signed by more than half of the Senate and released Monday, the lawmakers expressed concern about a restitution bill under discussion in Poland that, in its current form, would require that claimants be Polish citizens and limit compensation to spouses, children or grandchildren.

“This draft legislation would adversely affect Holocaust victims and their heirs and is therefore of urgent importance to many of our constituents, millions of Americans, and Holocaust survivors around the world,” the senators wrote in the letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The letter was written by Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

The restitution of prewar property has proven to be a challenge for Poland, which suffered immense destruction during the war and the changes of its borders in the postwar settlement, followed by the nationalization of property by the Communist Party government. Those dispossessed included a swath of prewar Polish citizenry, among them many of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust or who fled Poland after the war.

Since the fall of communism, multiple efforts to pass a law that would offer restitution or partial compensation to prewar owners have all failed, with lawmakers balking at the high cost.