Holocaust survivors from around the world will gather in Warsaw this month to urge the Polish government to compensate them for property confiscated by the former communist regime, Jewish organisations said today.
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.
Naphthalie Lavie
Attempts to solve the issue after the collapse of communism in 1989 have failed, mostly on the grounds that it would be too costly for the state budget.
Representatives of Jewish groups will gather in the Polish capital on February 27th, hoping to convince the authorities to speed up legislation allowing the restitution of lost property. "I am coming to Poland to meet Polish authorities and present our point of view," Israel Singer from the World Jewish Congress, was quoted by Polish daily Rzeczpospolita as saying.
Poland had Europe's biggest Jewish community until World War Two, when the Nazis killed nearly 90 per cent 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. Naphtali Lavie, from the World Jewish Restitution Organisation, said he expected the government to take immediate action to resolve the issue. "We have been waiting for this for a very long time," he said by telephone from Jerusalem.
"Many of the people who lost their goods are very old today ... How long are they supposed to wait?"
Poland's ruling conservatives 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. Polish officials estimate total claims for pre-war real estate and other property amount to at least $20 billion.
Germans who were displaced from Poland after the war and other groups are also seeking compensation. For many Holocaust survivors, 15 per cent is not enough.
"How can you give someone back only a part of a house he lived in. This is not a restitution," Mr Lavie said.