Member News
By Baroness Deech - 5th December 2011
Baroness Deech calls for the creation of an international organisation representing European and other claimant countries to reclaim property in Poland taken from them in the Second World War.
Over 65 years after the end of World War II and two decades since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Jewish and non-Jewish claimants (the latter form 80 per cent of claimants) are struggling to reclaim property situated in Poland that was taken from them.
The Polish government is the only post-communist European nation without restitution legislation, and appears to be procrastinating over this issue, placing obstacles in the way of claimants until they die or give up. Before the war, 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland. Ninety per cent were killed by 1945 and their property was seized by both the German and the Soviet authorities. A few returned to Poland after the war and tried to reclaim their property, but they were deterred and frightened into emigration again by the violence shown towards them in, for example, the Kielce pogrom of 1946.
Many of the elderly survivors are in poverty and ill health. Most of them face insuperable difficulties in bringing private claims in Poland for their property (estimated 170,000 properties) – lack of title deeds, cost and language. Almost annually the Polish government prepares draft laws providing for restitution, but they have never been enacted. The latest plan was shelved this year.
All the other EU states, many of whom are poorer than Poland, have resolved the claims by a settlement. Poland has been urged to do likewise by the OSCE, by the European Parliament and by the US Senate and Congress. When Poland was about to join the EU it was required of her that she make restitution, but this provision was abandoned at the last moment. Poland is President of the EU; it is time for the country to accept its obligations and observe human rights.
The Czech Government hosted the Holocaust Era Assets Conference Prague in 2009 with the objective of assessing the progress made since previous conferences on this topic. It was attended by 49 nations and two dozen NGOs (http://www.holocausteraassets.eu/). It resulted in the Terezin Declaration of June 10, signed by Poland. This calls on European nations “to address the private property claims of Holocaust victims concerning immovable property of former owners, heirs or successors, by either restitution or compensation, as may be appropriate, in a fair, comprehensive and non-discriminatory manner and through an expeditious process. This process should be simple, accessible, transparent and neither burdensome nor costly to the individual claimant”. Guidelines have been drawn up, but nothing is enforceable.
Clearly full restoration or compensation is not feasible, but some proportionate compensation should be paid, and paid quickly. The last Polish proposal of 20 per cent over 15 years was inadequate for the elderly claimants. What is needed is an international organisation representing European and other claimant countries, controlling a Polish fund to meet claims (as was done in e.g. Austria, Macedonia), and an easing of the evidential requirements. Otherwise European institutions that invest in Poland should be called upon to consider how to use their influence to achieve justice.
Ruth Deech was the pro-vice-chancellor of Oxford University (2001-04). She was raised to the peerage in 2005 and sits as a crossbencher.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd