Representing Jewish Communities in 100 Countries Across Six Continents
Representing Jewish Communities in 100 Countries Across Six Continents
26 May 2011
The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WRJO) has appealed to US President Barack Obama to raise the issue of the return of confiscated Jewish property during his visit to Poland this week. In a statement, the WJRO director-general and former Israeli ambassador to Poland, David Peleg (pictured on the right), asked Obama to take up the issue of basic justice for those seeking closure to the issue. “A country that has not properly addressed its past is not truly free to move into the future,” said Peleg. “We ask President Obama to raise this issue of profound and basic justice with the Polish government. Stolen property must be returned. We call on Prime Minister Tusk to resume the legislative process for restitution, as he has promised.”
Poland is the only major country in the former Soviet bloc yet to solve the problem of returning private property confiscated by the Nazis or nationalized by the Communist regime. About 3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland prior to World War II; only about 10,000 currently reside there now.
Grzegorz Schetyna, speaker of the Sejm, Poland’s parliament, admitted that the matter had never been fully resolved. “This problem is facing us and it must be finalized”, he told the news agency PAP. “But this depends on the financial capabilities of the Polish state. I don’t think Barack Obama will raise this issue”, Schetyna said.
Earlier this this year, the Polish government announced that, due to financial reasons, it was suspending a pending restitution bill for former property owners whose assets were confiscated during the Nazi occupation or the Communist period. In response, Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and chairman of the WJRO, had expressed regret at the Polish government's decision and said: “For us it is a matter of justice and not money.”
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How about ukrainians were forced from Poland in 1946 thier property was taken brutaly. Ukrainians, suffered from fashists, communists and polish bandits, had to go to Soviet Ukraine under Stalin regime where was not any human rights at all. Who reimburses them for their suffering. They still have not any rights at all in Ukraine,
maybe israel should give a little justice to the arabs!! what about the jews that served stalin? kept poland inprison for amny years and murdered many pole's - how much do you want?
The right thing to do is to return the Poland properties to the Jewish families from whom it was confiscated, just as South Africa had to return farms to the previously owned farms that were confiscated during apartheid.
If there are new families on the property in Poland, the government should pay out the Jewish families for their confiscated properties if they dont want to live on it, because it was the Communist government who confiscated the properties and sold it back to other people??
That's big of Obama, giving back with one hand and taking with the other, admittedly it's not the same country involved but by even suggesting apportioning our Gd-given land to benefit our enemy would jeopodise Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. This could be a drastic error of judgment by Obama telling Israel to offer land that rightfullly belongs to Jews and, of all things, the areas which were reclaimed during the 1967 war - this would be the death-nell for Israel.
Justice could never be bestowed upon murdered Jews of Poland and the rest of Europe but restitution may be provided by avoiding an obvious catastraphe in making the borders safe for for the Israelies, so as not to repeat another holocaust.
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