19 May, 2006
The resignation of a Polish Cabinet minister may delay the passage of a restitution bill for Jewish property, JTA reports. Secretary of State Ryszard Schnepf quit this week after a newspaper article in which he was quoted as saying that Poland’s prime minister wanted the country to join in a German-Russian oil pipeline. Schnepf, whose father was the head of the Polish Jewish community during the Communist regime, was in the midst of negotiating the details of a law that would compensate Jews for the confiscation of their property by the Nazis and Communists. Meanwhile, a meeting that was to take place on the compensation bill earlier this week between prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and leaders of the Claims Conference was canceled. Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told JTA: “We are concerned that the departure of secretary of State Schnepf will delay the process, and we are urging the Polish government to move rapidly to introduce and improve the proposed legislation.”
