Poland’s head of diplomacy, Radoslaw Sikorski has rebuffed calls from the United States to pay out restitution for citizens that lost property due to the Nazi and Communist regimes.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to present a document signed in the 1960s by Poland and the United States which shows that Washington effectively gave up its right to represent its citizens in such restitution cases.
Talking to Polish Radio on Thursday morning, Radoslaw Sikorski said that “the United States gave up the right to represent its citizens in such cases and took the burden upon itself to pay out restitution money worth millions which Poland had already paid to the United States.”
The comments come after Stuart Eizenstat, a special advisor to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, bewailed Poland’s decision to stall additional compensation for citizens that lost property as a result of the Nazi and Communist regimes.
“Polish officials have stated on several occasions that property restitution and compensation would be addressed during the tenure of the current government,” Eizenstat told Polish Radio, Wednesday evening.
‘US could have helped earlier’
However, American pressure on Poland to pay out restitution claims has not pleased Radoslaw Sikorski, who told Polish Radio Thursday morning that “if the United States would have wanted to help Polish Jews, a good moment for that would have been 1943-44, when the majority of them were still alive, and Poland was pleading for help through the voice of Jan Karski.”
“Such an intervention is now too late,” Sikorski concluded.
During his mission in 1942, Karski provided evidence of German extermination policy against the Jews to the London based Polish government-in-exile, as well as to top British and US politicians and the press.
US keen to find compromise?
“Having been involved in this issue for some 15 years, previous prime ministers and presidents, going back to President Kwasniewski, have likewise committed themselves to resolving this issue,” Eizenstat told Polish Radio.
Earlier, during a press conference on the issue, he said that “the United States is deeply disenchanted by the Polish government’s decision to stall [the restitution] plans.”
“We have a very close deep bilateral relationship and we will hopefully use those close ties to try to diplomatically deal with this,” Eizenstat told Polish Radio last night.
Stuart Eizenstat, a former US ambassador to the European Union, noted that the majority of EU states which had faced similar problems had already enacted workable legislation, either in the form of restitution or compensation.
No money for restitution payouts
The matter relates to contested property that belonged to Polish citizens of all religious denominations. Approximately 89,000 cases are still outstanding, ranging from manorial estates of the Polish nobility to houses that belonged to Polish Jews.
Large scale restitution began in 1989, with the fall of communism. Yet while thousands of properties were returned to their pre-war owners, countless cases stalled.
Prime Minister Tusk pledged to push a bill through in 2008, but last week, he expressed that the matter was being stalled as “Poland could not afford to do so at present”, owing to “the global financial crisis.”
Yesterday, Eizenstat said that the US had taken on board Tusk’s remarks that the government “will reconsider the decision, when the economy rights itself.”
Earlier this week, Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said that the refusal to return property to owners was “immoral”.
Today, many of the claimants are scattered across the globe. They include veterans who fought for Poland during World War II, as well as Holocaust survivors. (jb/nh)
Source: IAR/PAP