Polish Senate begins hearings on confiscated property law
Lapid lambastes ‘immoral’ attempt to ‘obscure history’
The Polish Senate began deliberations on Wednesday on a highly controversial bill that would forestall property restitution, or compensation, for people whose property was confiscated by the Polish Communist regime after the Second World War, including Holocaust survivors.
The law was passed after scant debate last month by the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, and sent to the Senate for approval, sparking a diplomatic incident with Israel after Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned the legislation as “immoral.”
A vote on the legislation is scheduled for July 19.
After the war, the Polish Communist authorities enacted a massive program of property confiscation and nationalization across the country, including large amounts of property previously belonging to Poland’s prewar Jewish population of some three million people, 90% of whom were murdered at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust.
The new legislation would prevent people who lost property in the confiscations, including Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust and their heirs, from reclaiming their property, or getting compensation for it.
Ahead of the hearing, Lapid issued a strong statement again condemning the proposed law.
“Poland’s attempt to pass another law that tries to obscure history and remove responsibility for the property of Holocaust survivors is an illegal and immoral attempt,” Lapid said.
“The State of Israel will stand on the side of Holocaust survivors and history, and will not bow its head in the face of these attempts,” adding that he hopes the Senate would change the legislation to “ensure good relations with Israel and, no less importantly, give the respect worthy of history.”
THE HEARING was held in a Senate committee in which numerous speakers gave different perspectives on the issue, including government officials, members of parliament, lawyers, foreign diplomats and some of the property owners.
One speaker was Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, who
chay said. condemned the legislation as immoral.
“One of the Ten Commandments is ‘Thou shall not steal,’” Schudrich told the committee.
“This property was stolen twice: once by the Germans when they occupied the country, and the second time by the Communists after the war. The current Polish government is a successor to the Communist one, albeit very different – and ‘Thou shall not steal’ continues to apply 60 years and 80 years after a theft happened,” Schudrich said.
“There is a moral duty to compensate in some way someone whose property was stolen, and it is the moral responsibility of the government to recognize the injustice that happened.”
Schudrich took pains to assert that the religious affiliation of victims of the Polish Communist regime’s property confiscations, whether Jewish or Catholic, is irrelevant, and that the moral obligation to provide compensation extends to all Polish citizens who had their property seized.
Poles and Jews have been able to make claims for property restitution through the Polish courts, and in some cases have succeeded in reclaiming their property, although the process is complex and difficult.
Schudrich told The Jerusalem Post that Wednesday’s hearing was generally well-mannered, although noting that the deputy justice minister spoke intemperately and made various political comments which were rebuked by the committee head.
Another speaker was author, poet and Holocaust survivor Halina Birenbaum, who was born and grew up in Warsaw.
“It is inconceivable to me that in Poland in 2021, free from any occupation, [there exists] the right to disinherit us Jewish survivors of the Shoah from our and our murdered fathers’ and grandfathers’ private property: apartments, houses, all property,” Birenbaum said in the committee.
“We lived in Poland for hundreds of years, built, learned, created, served in the army, paid all civil taxes,” she said, and went on to describe the horrors she and her family experienced during the Holocaust in Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek, where her parents were murdered.
“Now, today, the right is being created to disinherit us survivors of our murdered fathers’ and grandfathers’ property,” Birenbaum said.
“But maybe this new law is just a nightmare? And a normal, fair world will return, as well as good relations between our Polish and Jewish states. I believe so.”
Chargé d’affaires of the Israeli Embassy in Poland Tal BenAri Yaalon also spoke, and said that the issue of the confiscated property of Jewish Holocaust survivors is one of “dignity, of justice and of memory.”
“These survivors have the right, historically, morally and legally, to present their claims and to receive the compensation they deserve for their property,” she said. “After all their suffering, it is the very least they are owed.”
Ben-Ari Yaalon noted that under the current law, enacted after the fall of Communism in Poland, all Poles, “regardless of ethnicity and religion,” are able to pursue their rights in court, “in the hope of achieving justice.”
She noted that the new legislation would “allow for legal indemnity with regard to all properties nationalized by Communists,” blocking former property owners who were unable until now to pursue their cases, and stop legal proceedings of claims already before the courts.
“There must be a just solution, a solution that takes into account history, takes into account values, takes into account morality,” she said. “Listen to the voices from the Jewish world, listen to the voices from the Jewish state. Listen to the pain this legislation is causing. Listen to the voices of the survivors who are telling you to stop this legislation and reconsider. It isn’t too late.”