U.S. sisters seek restitution for business stolen by Nazis

Joanna Berendt WARSAW, POLAND — Miriam Tasini and her sister, Alisa Sorkin, were toddlers in 1940 when they were loaded onto cattle cars bound for a gulag in Siberia, just two of the 1 million Polish citizens, including 200,000 Jews, deported by the Soviets to labor camps.

Their parents were allowed to take only what they could carry, including gold coins sewed under the buttons of their daughters’ winter coats, which were later traded for food.

But the real fortune was left behind when the family fled east from their native city of Krakow to Lviv after the war in Poland first broke out: the family’s large house overlooking the Vistula River and a lucrative bakery business that was seized by the Nazis and then nationalized by the communist govern- ment after the war.

Ever since 1989, when com- munism in Poland ended, the sisters, who now live in the United States, have been fight- ing to reclaim what was stolen from their family.

Poland is now considering restitution legislation, but even if it passes, the sisters, along with thousands of other 20 times since the fall of the victims of the war and occupa- communist regime. tion, would lose out because All previous efforts failed, of what advocates call oner- however, with one of the big- ous requirements, including gest obstacles being concerns proof of Polish citizenship. among lawmakers about how

Those requirements, said much the restitution legislaGideon Taylor, chairman of tion could cost. the World Jewish Restitution Home to the largest pop- Organization, would “exclude ulation of Jews in Europe virtually all Holocaust surbefore the war, Poland has vivors.” more property that was stolen

Poland is the only coun- during the war and nationaltry in Europe that has not ized in its aftermath than any passed legislation to compenother nation. sate owners for properties President Donald Trump seized under Nazi and comrecently added new urgency munist rule. Different Polish to the issue when he signed governments have tried to a measure that requires the pass regulations more than State Department to monitor what European countries have done to compensate Holocaust survivors who had their assets stolen by the Nazis.

The Polish government has also been feeling pressured to amend the pending legislation, unveiled last fall, to make it easier for claimants, including for those who do not meet the current citizen- ship requirements.

Right now, those seeking restitution can claim their properties only by initiating private lawsuits. The process is difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

Stories like that of Jacob Finder, the grandfather of Tasini, 82, and Sorkin, 80, are common. Running from the Nazis, he left his bakery business, Ziarno, that included a flour mill and a bakery complex. Ziarno’s share certificates were lost during the war, preventing Tasini and her family from filing a court claim.

“My grandfather had to hide from the Nazis in a salt mine,” she said. “Paperwork wasn’t exactly on his mind.”

A developer in 2011 turned the mill into loft apartments. The transaction, Sorkin said, was worth $17 million.

“Our grandfather’s legacy — and we never saw a penny out of it,” Sorkin said.