Warsaw:
Poland’s president has decided to sign a bill that would set limits on the potential of Jews to recover house seized by Nazi German occupiers and retained by post-war communist rulers, a move probably to fuel tensions with Israel and the United States. “I made a decision today on the act, which in recent months was the subject of a lively and loud debate at home and abroad,” Andrzej Duda mentioned in a statement published on Saturday. “After an in-depth analysis, I have decided to sign the amendment.”
Up to now Jewish expatriates or their descendants could make a claim that a house was seized against the law and demand its return, but Polish officials argued this was causing uncertainty more than house ownership. In 2015, for that reason, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled there must be precise deadlines following which administrative choices more than house titles could no longer be challenged.
Changes to the law have been adopted by the Polish parliament earlier this week. The bill sets a 30-year limit for restitution claims. The situation of Jewish house rights in Poland is additional complex due to the fact in contrast to other EU states it has not made a fund to give compensation to folks whose house was seized.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday mentioned Washington was deeply concerned that the Polish parliament had passed the bill, and urged Mr Duda not to sign it into law or refer it to Poland’s constitutional tribunal.
Washington is one of Warsaw’s most critical allies, but relations amongst the two nations have been strained by the house situation, as effectively as other challenges such as plans to introduce alterations that the opposition says aim to silence a US-owned news channel important of the government.
Before World War Two, Poland had been home to one of the world’s most significant Jewish communities, but it was practically totally wiped out by the Nazis and Jewish former house owners and their descendants have been campaigning for compensation.