Teaming Up
By : Juliet D. Golden
Action men: Members of the property owners' union prepare to take their cause to U.S. President George W. Bush.
Poland's unresolved property restitution problem was poised to take a back seat during U.S. President George Bush's official visit last Friday, despite moves on the part of former property owners to highlight the issue.
Frustrated by the slow progress on resolving their claims, former property owners were preparing to stage a protest outside the Presidential Palace in hopes of forcing the restitution issue onto the agenda of Bush's meeting with President Aleksander Kwasniewski.
"We want to hold the picket to remind President (Bush) that his citizens need help solving the problem of stolen property," said Miroslaw Szypowski, chairman of the National Coalition of Revindication Organizations (OPOR).
However, despite attempts to force the issue into the public spotlight assuming property restitution figured at all in the diplomatic exchanges it looked likely to remain much behind the scenes.
"It's not that important in view of the presidential visit," said Grzegorz Dziemidowicz, spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry. "I'm not sure that this issue will be a main one or stressed by American partners."
In the weeks before Bush's departure for Europe, Holocaust survivors in the United States had been lobbying the White House to place property resitution high on the diplomatic agenda with Poland. To press the point, New York attorneys involved in a class-action lawsuit against the government of Poland were planning to organize a press conference in Warsaw before Bush's arrival. But sources said last week that after U.S. officials assured that the restitution issue would figure into talks, the attorneys' visit was called off.
"The president assured that the issue would be raised with Kwasniewski," Szypowski said.
In the decade since the fall of communism, Poland has lagged in introducing comprehensive property restitution legislation. The most recent attempt to force a bill through Parliament hit a dead end in March when Kwasniewski vetoed the proposal.
The absence of legislation has not only frustrated property developers in Poland, but has also come into play in international diplomacy. In addition to an estimated 250,000 landowners in Poland seeking the return of expropriated properties, Polish expatriates and Jews living outside the country have been waiting for the implementation of legislation to receive compensation for real estate lost during World War II or under communism.
Regardless of how prominent property restitution ultimately played in last week's meetings, the issue will likely continue to flare up in U.S.-Poland relations in the coming months. Later this year a U.S. federal judge is slated to decide whether to grant jurisdiction in the case of 11 Jews seeking compensation for property seized during World War II by the Nazis or later by the Polish government. Additionally, in protest of Poland's foot-dragging on the issue, New York state congressmen are moving to interrupt air travel between New York and Poland by banning LOT Polish Airlines from John F. Kennedy Airport.
However, Polish officials doubt the issue will figure prominently in international diplomacy. They emphasize rather that property restitution should remain a domestic issue.
"In the absence of a decision by Parliament, this is a problem for the Polish courts," Dziemidowicz said.
