Holocaust survivors from around the world pressed Poland's government today to compensate them for property confiscated by the former communist regime.
Poland, the biggest post-communist European Union member, is the only country from eastern Europe, besides Belarus, which has not enacted a programme for the restitution of property seized after World War Two.
Attempts to solve the issue after the collapse of communism in 1989 have failed, mostly due to concern over the likely cost. "When you've taken something away from someone, you should give it back, period," Israel Singer, President of the Claims Conference, said following meetings with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Speaker of Parliament Marek Jurek.
"You don't ask the person's religion, you don't ask the person's race, you don't ask the person's creed, you just give it back. That's what we're here to ask the government to do." Poland had Europe's biggest Jewish community until World War Two, when the Nazis killed nearly 90 percent of the country's 3.3 million Jews.
The post-war communist rulers seized their property as well as that of people who left or fled the country. Poland's ruling conservatives have promised to resolve the issue and pass relevant legislation in coming months. But the government proposal envisages compensation for only 15 per cent of the property lost.
Neither Kaczynski nor Jurek commented publicly after the meetings.