The Polish Interior Ministry has informed local authorities to return citizenship, if demanded, to Jews expelled from Poland in 1968.
Danuta Isler reports
The Chancellery of the President has confirmed that Polish citizenship of 3,500 immigrants who settled in Israel in the late 1960s will be returned. According to estimates as many as 1,000 people may be affected. March 8th marks the 40th anniversary of what is known in Poland as 'March 1968' - when tens of thousands of Poles of Jewish descent were forced to leave Poland under the communist regime. To mark the anniversary the Shalom Foundation issued a letter to President Lech Kaczynski, which states that it would be a 'most beautiful gesture' if all Jews expelled from Poland automatically regained their citizenship one day. However, according to Polish law, the President can only grant Polish citizenship; he cannot confirm or restate it. This can only be done by governors of local provinces. Deputy Premier and Minister of Internal Affairs Grzegorz Schetyna has recommended that province governors facilitate the process.
'Their applications will be considered by the province governors and in such cases they will be considered as proof of their citizenship. They will prove the loss of citizenship due to the fact that it was given up illegally because it was forced by the then situation in the country, by repressions, by forcing them to emigrate.'
It was in 2006 during his visit to Israel that President Lech Kaczynski said that those who had been forced to leave Poland during the 1968 communist-led anti-Semitic campaign should have their Polish citizenship reconfirmed without any problems, 'as if they had never actually lost it'. Piotr Kadlczik, of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Warsaw, says in this case we should rather talk about reconfirmation than Polish citizenship.
'According to statements of Polish courts, including Supreme Court, people who were stripped of dual citizenship in 1968 and expelled from Poland actually never lost their citizenship. So we are not talking about giving back the citizenship but rather reconfirming it. I don't see any reasons why this decision of fixing up injustice that happened 40 years ago shall bring any kind of problems.’
It is unknown how many Polish citizens of Jewish descent would be interested in regaining the Polish passport. Diana Fialkowska is an Israeli journalist who lived for 10 years in Poland. She knows many people who in 1968 were deprived of their passports by the Communist Security Service and given a one-way ticket.
'I think it's not only people that left Poland in 1968 or 1989. I know people that left after the war and now they want to have Polish citizenship. Why? I think it's because they belong to this culture. But this is old people. Young people - they are looking to find their roots, where their parents or grandparents come from. They are very happy to have Polish citizenship.'
There have also appeared critical voices saying that many of the people affected may find the procedure quite humiliating: not only were they forced to leave Poland, but now they have to ask the president and local authorities to grant them back their Polish citizenship. Piotr Kadlczik again.
'I don't think that the issue is in whether they want to return or not. The fact is there are people who feel that the suffering that this decision of Polish authorities in 1968 cost will actually make it impossible for them to ask the Polish authorities for reconfirmation.'
As a result of the March 1968 events, an anti-Semitic campaign was launched in communist Poland. Approximately 20,000 Jews lost their jobs and had to emigrate. The campaign considerably tarnished Poland's image abroad.