Sejm passes restitution bill
In the Sejm's final vote on the long-awaited property restitution bill last week, Poland's lower house of Parliament opted to restrict eligibility for compensation permitted under the law to former property owners and their families who were registered as Polish citizens as of Dec. 31, 1999.
For most politicians, the inclusion of the harsh citizenship rule meant that President Aleksander Kwasniewski would move swiftly to veto the law.
"We gave the president one strong argument," said Jan Wyrowinski, a Freedom Union (UW) parliamentarian. "For this reason his decision will be to veto."
The outcome last week was possible due to an unusual alliance between some right-wing politicians from the ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) party and the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). In a vote of 311-101, these parliamentarians rejected amendments introduced earlier this year by the Senate, in which all former Polish citizens whose property was wrongly confiscated between 1944-1962 would be eligible to receive compensation under the law.
This narrow approach to restitution has been criticized here and abroad for excluding large numbers of Jews and other Poles now living outside Poland who lost property during World War II or under communism.
Presidential adviser Marek Belka said that the exclusion of these groups from the restitution process played a central role in his decision to urge a presidential veto.
"In the final phase of parliamentary work, this law was deprived of one feature that would have closed off the possibility of certain claims being filed," Belka said last week. "Now, regardless of whether we will have (a restitution law) or not, or maybe because of this law, an avalanche of claims still awaits us, therefore, I am going to advise the president to veto the bill."
U.S. lawyers, who are representing plaintiffs in a key property restitution class action suit filed against the government of Poland almost two years ago in a New York Federal Court, last week criticized lawmakers for failing to address the claims of former Jewish property owners. "Unfortunately (the law passed last week) shows the lack of a desire by Poland to settle the restitution issue," said Edward Klein, a lawyer with Klein and Solomon in New York.
The final vote on the restitution law came at a particularly sensitive moment in Polish-Jewish relations. Last week the New Yorker published excerpts from "Neighbors," a book recently released in the United States by scholar Jan Gross detailing the gruesome murder by Poles in 1941 of 1,600 Jews in the village of Jedwabne. For Poles and Jews alike, the Jedwabne story has highlighted the ongoing debate over the Holocaust and Polish participation in crimes with the Nazis during World War II.
"Until now we have been considering ourselves saviors of Jews during World War II," said Grzegorz Dziemidowicz, spokesman for Poland's Foreign Affairs Ministry. "So unexpectedly, especially for younger generations, we are those that took part in the Holocaust, so it's a horrible burden especially for the people of Jedwabne."
In the wake of the Sejm's vote, politicians here expect the president to move fast to veto the bill. "I think the veto will happen (this) week," said Wieslaw Kaczmarek, an SLD Parliamentarian.
Officials from the Foreign Affairs Ministry said last week they are pressing Kwasniewski to decide on the issue prior to Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski's official visit to Washington D.C. and New York, slated for the beginning of April.
"We are expecting a quick veto to have a clear position during his U.S. visit," Dziemidowicz said. "People close to the president said that he will decide as quickly as possible."
