At issue are an estimated 180,000 properties confiscated from private owners by the Nazis in occupied Poland or by the Communist Polish government after World War II. Many were sold to private individuals by the Polish government after the fall of communism.
The survivor groups hope to use Poland’s desire for E.U. membership as leverage. A domestic referendum on E.U. membership is scheduled in Poland for this spring, and formal acceptance is foreseen for 2004.
The survivor groups expect to bring their message to the next meeting of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Washington in the spring.
The Helsinki Committee and the European Parliament can “give a strong message that if Poland wants to be in the European Union, they have to not violate human rights and they can’t take private property,” Jehuda Evron, president of the Holocaust Restitution Committee in the United States, said in a phone interview from Brussels.
Evron, 70, came to Brussels from New York for the meetings, which were organized by Gary Titley, a British member of the E.U. Parliament. They were attended by Jewish and non-Jewish representatives of property owners, as well as lawyers and E.U. legislators.
Other survivor representatives at the meetings included Serge Cwajgenbaum, general secretary of the European Jewish Congress, and Peter Koppenheim, president of the Holocaust Restitution Committee in Europe.
Miroslaw Szpowsky and Antoni Feldon of the Organization of Restitution of Polish Properties also participated.
Maciej Popowski, minister of Poland’s mission to the European Union, said the government is working on a restitution law that won’t discriminate between current Polish citizens and noncitizens, Evron said after the hearings. But the Polish government will offer just 20 percent to 50 percent of the value, he added.
Evron’s father-in-law, Sigmund Balitzer, owned a factory and a house in Zycwiez until he was murdered by the Nazis. The only one left from the family of 60 people was Evron’s wife, Lea, and her mother.
A while back, they visited the former family property in Zycwiez.
“We were walking on the street and looking at the factory and someone asked who we were,” Evron said. “My wife said, ‘This was my father’s factory.’ He said, ‘Oh, Mr. Balitzer, he was such a nice man.’
“She started to cry. And he said, ‘I don’t understand why they don’t give it to you,'” Evron said.
“The people on the street understand that it is a terrible injustice,” said Evron, who plans to return to the site “with my entire family, 15 people including my grandchildren” — but only when they can say it is theirs again.
Evron’s story is one among many.
Survivors and descendants of the original owners, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have been pleading with the Polish government for years to return their properties. Accused of trying to ruin the Polish economy, they point out that they do not want money, only their property. And a bad economy would be bad for the survivors, too, Evron noted.
Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller promised, during his visit in New York in November 2001, “to solve this tragic problem,” Evron said. “But a few days later he announced that there would be no restitution this year and probably not even next year.”
Survivor groups say they are angry about their long wait for justice.
“Poland is the only country in Europe which hasn’t given anything back to survivors who can fully document their claims,” said Peter Koppenheim, president of the Holocaust Restitution Committee in Europe, who flew in from England for the hearings and spoke by phone from Brussels.
“I am in my early 70s, but there are people who are aged 80 and 90 and plus,” he said. “Why should they not have the benefit in old age of something to which they are entitled?”
According to Evron, some 35,000 Jews are believed to have legitimate claims. No dollar amount for the total property value was available.