Germany accused Poland of double standards on the issue of reparations
Poland's demand for reparations from Germany is not just a violation of interstate treaties, but also an application of double standards, since the Poles have still not returned the property seized from the Jews.
The popular German publication Bild writes about this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
In the article “Poland’s demands are evidence of double standards” published on January 11 in Bild, Michael Wolfson writes:
“The current Polish government is resurrecting the ghosts of the past not only for internal and economic reasons. This applies to morality, and not to the treaties already concluded after 1990, which exclude German reparations for Poland.”
The German newspaper claims this is an example of "double standards".
“At the first opportunity, the Poles seized Jewish property. There they remained after the war, although the surviving Jews wanted to return to their old apartments or houses in Poland. Many of them were killed for this reason. After 1945, the Polish state appropriated the remains of Jewish property. Since the fall of communism, descendants of Jews killed before and after 1945 or Jewish communities have demanded restitution or compensation, but Poland has consistently rejected these demands since 1989,” writes Bild.
This is a kind of response to the appeal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland to the US Congress on the issue of receiving reparations from Germany, as announced a day earlier by Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mulaczyk.
“We believe that the United States is the country that defines the global order today, the key country when it comes to issues of respect for international order, human rights, the rule of law and international justice.
Therefore, we appeal to the committees of the US Congress, first of all, to the Chairman of the Helsinki Committee of the US Congress, Senator Benjamin Cardin, to Congressman Gregory Meeks - he is the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Congress, then to Senator Robert Menendez - Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate and to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur - she is the co-chair of the Polish-American Friendship Group,” Mularczyk said on January 10.
It is worth noting that in 2018, Law No. 447 came into force in the United States on the return of lost property to Holocaust victims (“Justice for Uncompensated Survivors”). This law requires an accounting of the actions of certain countries regarding the disposal of property since the Holocaust. If direct heirs cannot be identified, the objects are expected to be transferred to organizations that conduct Holocaust research. Law No. 447 was sharply opposed in Poland, and the Polish law on property restitution adopted in 2021 practically deprives even the surviving heirs of Holocaust victims of the right to it.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, the Polish authorities have submitted a request to the UN with a request to intervene in the situation with the payment of reparations for losses in the Second World War, which Poland demands from Germany.
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