"Speech about unacceptable actions": why the new law on restitution of property sparked a conflict between Poland and Israel

The Polish authorities will take symmetrical measures in response to the actions of Israel, which has withdrawn the Charge d'Affaires of the Jewish state from Warsaw.

This was reported by the Polish Foreign Ministry.

"The Polish Foreign Ministry negatively evaluates the actions of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the unjustified decision to lower the rank of the diplomatic mission in Warsaw," the Polish ministry said in a statement.

The Polish Foreign Ministry stressed that the steps taken by Israel are causing serious damage to bilateral relations between Warsaw and Jerusalem.

"The Government of the Republic of Poland will take appropriate political and diplomatic measures, taking into account the principle of symmetry in bilateral relations," promised in Warsaw.

This statement was made by the Polish Foreign Ministry after the head of Israeli diplomacy, Yair Lapid, announced that Israel's chargé d'affaires in Warsaw should immediately return home for indefinite consultations.

The departure of the new Israeli ambassador to Poland was also postponed.

In addition, the Israeli Foreign Ministry recommended that the Polish envoy to the Jewish state continue his vacation in his country.

This "will not stop"

Israel recalled its chargé d'affaires in Warsaw after Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a controversial amendment to the country's legislation, which deals with the restitution of property of Jews who suffered during the Second World War.

In July 2021, the Polish Seimas approved these amendments to the Administrative Procedure Code, according to which the heirs of Holocaust victims can appeal against the seizure of property no later than 30 years after the administrative decision on the ownership of the property was issued.

In fact, this means that the descendants of the representatives of the Jewish diaspora who suffered in Poland during the Second World War are deprived of the right to return property confiscated by the Nazis or the post-war Polish authorities.

President Duda motivated his actions by the fact that with the adoption of the amendments, Polish citizens would allegedly be more protected in their property rights.

• Andrzej Duda

• Reuters

• © Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Gazeta

“I am convinced that with my signature the era of legal chaos ends - the era of reprivatization mafias, the uncertainty of millions of Poles and the lack of respect for the elementary rights of the citizens of our country.

For I believe in a state that provides citizens with protection from injustice, ”Duda said on August 14, commenting on the signing of amendments to the legislation.

At the same time, the Polish president rejected accusations that the law is directed against Jews, but added that Warsaw will not allow the use of the Holocaust topic for political purposes.

It is worth noting that earlier, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called on the Polish president to refuse to sign the document.

The head of the State Department said that Poland needs a comprehensive law to resolve property disputes, which would ensure fair solutions for victims of confiscations.

Blinken also recalled that Warsaw is a NATO ally and that the adoption of such a law would be contrary to the principles and values ​​for which modern democracies stand.

"We urge the Polish government to demonstrate its commitment to these general principles, not only in words, but also in deeds," Blinken said in a statement posted on the State Department's website.

In turn, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, commenting on the actions of the Polish authorities, called the adopted law "anti-Semitic and immoral."

He said that the Polish ambassador to Israel, continuing his vacation in his homeland, "should use the time he has to explain to the Poles what the Holocaust means for the citizens of Israel and how much we will not tolerate contempt for the memory of the victims and the memory of the Holocaust."

Lapid added that the Jewish state "will not stop there" and will conduct "coordination negotiations with the Americans on how to react further."

“Today Poland has become an anti-democratic, illiberal country that does not honor the greatest tragedy in human history.

It is impossible to be silent in such a situation.

Israel and the Jewish people, of course, will not remain silent, ”Lapid said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Defense Minister Benny Gantz also condemned Warsaw's actions.

Historical revisionism

Recall that in 2009 Poland, together with 45 other European countries, signed the Terezin Declaration, according to which all signatories pledged to return Jewish community assets, private property and religious objects taken from the victims of the Holocaust through restitution or compensation.

However, the current document completely contradicts the commitments undertaken by Warsaw.

At the same time, this is not the first time that Poland has been criticized for refusing to follow the provisions of the declaration.

So, in 2020, the US State Department (then under the leadership of Mike Pompeo) released a report in which a number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe were accused of not having compensated the victims of Nazism.

• Suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

  Captured Jews, accompanied by the Waffen-SS, 1943

• © Wikimedia

The most harsh criticism in the report came from Poland, which before the outbreak of World War II was home to the largest Jewish diaspora.

The report of the US State Department then noted that out of 5,500 applications for property rights submitted, only half were satisfied, and the country had not yet approved the legal basis for dealing with such cases.

Experts note that the Polish authorities have repeatedly come out with controversial statements and decisions demonstrating attempts to revise the history of World War II, for example, when they demanded new reparations from Germany or made financial claims to Russia.

“The current Polish authorities have adopted a concept of history that assumes that Warsaw must always be right. In this regard, Poland now denies any unseemly activities of both its state and ethnic Poles during the Second World War. At the same time, when evidence of the participation of individual Poles in the Holocaust began to surface, the authorities became uncomfortable with this situation, because this contradicted the image of Poland they had formed as a victim. And the signing by the president of the country of amendments to the law is a consequence of such a policy of the current leadership of the country, "Vadim Trukhachev, a teacher at the Department of Foreign Regional Studies and Foreign Policy at the Historical Archives Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities, said in an interview with RT.

For the current Polish leadership, the historical front is one of the key in state policy, so it is actively rewriting history and, as a result, has already quarreled not only with Russia, but also with Germany, and now with Israel, the expert added.

In a conversation with RT, Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics at Moscow State Pedagogical University, also noted that Warsaw's actions directly dispute generally accepted historical assessments of the events of World War II.

“This decision of the Polish leadership is outrageous and runs counter to the existing consensus in the world regarding the assessments of the Second World War and its results, as well as the assessment of the Holocaust.

In this regard, Israel's reaction to these actions is quite logical and justified, since we are talking about absolutely unacceptable actions, ”the political scientist emphasized.

The current right-wing conservative political establishment in Poland takes a position of extremely radical nationalism, which on many issues is absolutely at odds with the existing ideas about certain events in the world, Shapovalov explained.

“In light of this conflict, it is not surprising that the anti-Russian actions that the Polish government regularly takes, trying to falsify the memory of World War II, while accusing the USSR of attacking Poland in an alliance with Nazi Germany,” the expert noted.

According to Vladimir Shapovalov, the actions of the current Polish government are quite consistent with the policy pursued by the nationalist Polish leadership in the interwar period in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

“Anti-Semitic actions and how some Polish politicians and diplomats in those years welcomed the policy of Nazi Germany, clearly fits into the position of the current Polish authorities in relation to the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust,” the analyst concluded.