Polish PM: Paying Holocaust Restitution Would Be ‘Victory’ For Hitler
(JTA) — Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that paying restitution for Jewish property stolen during the Holocaust would be a “victory” for Hitler.
“If today anyone says that Poland has to pay damages to anyone, then we disagree and will continue to do so and it will not happen as long as the country is ruled by Law and Justice,” Morawiecki said during an event Friday in Lodz. “If there were such a terrible injustice, inverting torturer and victim, it would contradict any elementary principle of international law. This would also be Hitler’s posthumous victory, which is why we will never allow it.”
Earlier this month, Morawiecki said that Poland would never pay restitution because Poles were the greatest victims of World War II.
Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and Jewish groups have protested Poland’s failure to pass restitution laws for privately owned property lost by Jews in the Holocaust.
Under the Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today law, or JUST, passed a year ago, the U.S. State Department is required to prepare a progress report by this year on the situation of property left behind during the war in 46 countries, including Poland.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO