Settling with history

With no immediate prospects for a land restitution bill to restore pre-World War II property to rightful owners, individuals are trying to buy back land or seek settlement in courts For Michał Sobański, vice president of Warsaw restitution agency Reprywatyzacja, regaining historical properties belonging to his family that were seized by the communist government has been one of the greatest challenges of his life. Three generations of the Sobański family have fought to recover the Pałac Sobańskich on Aleje Ujazdowskie, a palace and estate in Guzów west of Warsaw, and 10,000 hectares of land, only to see their attempts end in failure. The previous government could not implement a restitution bill last year, a major setback for the 170,000 families in Poland and around the world that the Treasury Ministry estimates are pursuing claims to property or compensation dating back to World War II. While the government says that Poland's present economic stagnation rules out a new restitution bill this year, claimants hope that the country's European Union entry will put pressure on the government to remedy what many observers see as a source of international political embarrassment. In 1996 the Sobańskis managed to sell their claim to Pałac Sobańskich at a major loss - for a third of the property's market value (estimated at $5 million-$6 million) to Jan Wejchert, president of Polish media group ITI. The same year Sobański used the proceeds from the sale of Pałac Sobańskich to buy back the 2,000 square-meter palace in Guzów and its surrounding park at an auction from the Wiskitki borough (gmina) for zł. 120,000. "The condition of the building was close to ruin," Sobański said. "If I hadn't bought it, it would have collapsed." Since then Sobański has invested in waterproofing the building and hopes to find an investor to develop it into a corporate conference and training center. "I could have used the money I spent on buying back my family's own property to do a lot more to restore the building," Sobański said. Most former Soviet bloc countries have passed a restitution bill. But in Poland, zł. 44 billion ($10.4 billion) worth of confiscated property remains in state hands, according to Treasury Ministry estimates. Government inaction means that Jewish families are unable to reclaim properties stolen by the Nazis, Poles can't take title on homes, land or businesses illegally seized by the communist government, and those who lost land to the east of Poland - pre-war territory annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 - are without recourse. The last attempt to pass a restitution bill ended in a veto from President Aleksander Kwaśniewski last year. The bill planned to give claimants back 50% of their nationalized property or vouchers worth 50% of properties that had already been sold, which could be used to buy land in state auctions. Kwaśniewski justified his veto on the grounds that the bill excluded claimants who were not Polish citizens before December 1999 and that Poland could not afford the zł. 67 billion ($16 billion) needed to cover the cost of restitution. During his official visit to the United States last month, Prime Minister Lezek Miller told Polish and Jewish communities that the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD)-led government would not put a restitution bill to the Sejm until next year, fearing a public opinion backlash due to recent budget cuts. EU to the rescue The former owners of confiscated properties are left with the hope that Poland's EU accession will help them. "EU entry will speed up administrative and legal processes," Sobański said. "With a few major precedent restitution cases it will become easier to make successful claims." "This country cannot become a member of the European family with this issue unresolved," said Mirosław Szypowski, president of the Polish Association of Restitution Organizations (OPOR). "The ‘white book' of pre-accession guidelines contains a non-obligatory requirement that Poland should deal with the restitution issue. We want the EU to realize the magnitude of the situation and halt accession until it is resolved." OPOR represents 15 groups of claimants, each of which had property confiscated by one of 16 laws passed by the communist government, beginning with the Agricultural Reform Act of 1944, which transferred ownership of land to farming collectives, and ending with the 1962 Waterways Act, which nationalized lakes and rivers. According to Szypowski, although OPOR has 250,000 members, the number of potential restitution claimants is at least twice that. Eastern question One of the major groups comprising OPOR is the General Association of Krasovian State Treasury Creditors (OSKWSP), which joins 90,000 former residents of eastern Poland who were resettled after the territory was handed over to the Soviet Union in 1945, commonly called "Zabużanie." The communist government failed to resettle the Zabużanie, leaving large numbers without land. The 1997 Real Estate Act gave all Zabużanie who had proof of their resettlement compensation in the form of vouchers. But these were only valid at special auctions of treasury-owned land and barred Zabużanie from claiming agricultural land, which represents the majority of land sold at auctions. According to OSKWSP president Andrzej Korzeniowski, the problem is compounded by boroughs, which would rather sell property to raise money than return it to claimants. "The result is an illusory law because nobody in the administration is seriously thinking about paying out compensation for these claims," Korzeniowski said. "No one is the slightest bit concerned about it. There is an unspoken agreement that this subject should not be touched on." According to Piotr Zandberg, secretary for restitution at the Union of Jewish Gminas (ZGWŻRP), the lack of a restitution bill has been particularly hard on Holocaust survivors. As all Jewish property was confiscated by the German Treasury Ministry during the war, the Polish government issued a decree in 1945 giving Jews just six months to apply for new ownership documents, which are required to make a restitution claim today. "But it was very difficult to apply for these documents in post-war Poland because the Germans and communists were notorious for stripping Jews of their identity documents," Zandberg said. "Hardly anyone could apply because the country was in ruins and it was difficult for news of the decree to get to everyone entitled." He added that it is impossible to determine the number of Jews worldwide who have lost rights to their property this way. Although OPOR has worked to produce drafts of a restitution bill that would satisfy all of its 15 member groups, Szypowski claims that its efforts have been routinely thwarted by a lack of political will. "The Parliament, the president and the government do not want to do it because they benefit from these stolen properties," Szypowski said. OPOR has asked for the return of properties under state ownership, which represent more than 60% of all assets seized, and compensation for the 40% of assets annexed by the Soviet Union or sold since 1989, according to Szypowski. "Here we are open to compromise," he said. "We agreed to the 50% offered in the bill that was vetoed by the president," Szypowski said. "When you are over 80, close to the grave and have owned nothing for more than 40 years, then regaining even 10% is important." Without a restitution bill the only source of claims for owners of state-confiscated property lies in the discovery of infringements of the laws that nationalized their property. But according to Szypowski, this route has only reclaimed 1,500 of the 17,000 properties confiscated in Warsaw. "But since the Agricultural Reform Act still applies, it is not possible to make a claim for the larger part of restitution claims, namely farmland or forests," Sobański added.