The mediator is expected to be Henry Clark, who has been delegated by Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat. Last week, Eizenstat was nominated to become deputy treasury secretary.
Clark would be stepping in only six months before Poland is scheduled to host an international conference on property restitution. That conference follows up events on Nazi loot that were held in London in 1997 and again in Washington last December.
Polish authorities said that a measure to reprivatize property is “on the horizon” and that it will not discriminate on the basis of citizenship, Eizenstat announced earlier this month at the annual conference of the American Jewish Committee.
Many states impose citizenship or residency requirements on property claimants, which has the effect of discriminating against survivors who are trying to recover property but who live outside the country.
The Polish Jewish community and the WJRO are battling over the composition and control of a foundation to distribute and administer communal properties that are recovered by the union.
They cannot agree on how to divide the property. The WJRO has rejected a plan that would divide Poland into territorial districts, without regard to the property in those districts.
Under that plan, one-third of the districts would belong to “living Jewish communities,” one third to the WJRO, and the rest would be allocated at a later date.
It is far from certain that any Polish communal properties would generate cash.
“Even if you are 100 percent successful [in recovering property], there won’t be enough money to take care of the…more than 1,000 Jewish cemeteries in Poland that are our joint obligation,” said Stanislaw Krajewski, a member of the board.