When the president of Poland spoke here last week before America’s top Jewish leaders about restitution of Jewish property, his country’s plan was expected to follow the touted model recently set by Hungary.
Aleksander Kwasniewski assured Jewish leaders at the July 10 meeting that the Polish Parliament would vote Sept. I on the second draft of a law on the return of Jewish communal property confiscated in wartime Poland.
But the 41-year-old president disappointed those who had expected Poland to leave the door open on the restitution of private property.
Kwasniewski made his remarks before a joint gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the World Jewish Restitution Organization.
Hungary’s plan, announced earlier this month, has been called a breakthrough and a model for other countries in the region.
The Hungarian plan, which established a foundation to manage Jewish-owned communal property, does not specifically address the return of private property.
But lawmakers in Budapest are now hammering out legislation to address the issue, said Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress.
Between 80,000 and 130,000 Jews now reside in Hungary. Some 800,000 lived in Hungary before the war broke out.
The Polish president said at last week’s meeting that for a variety of political, economic, social and psychological reasons, the return of private property that had been confiscated would be difficult.
Some 3.5 million Jews called Poland home before the Holocaust. Today, between 3,500 and 30,000 Jews live there.
Kwasniewski said he empathized with those who lost their property — his family’s house in Vilnius, Lithuania, had been seized during World War II – – but he asked the Jewish community to understand that after 50 years, it would be hard to take property away from people only to give it back to those who had no intention of making a permanent return to Poland.
He also said Jews and Poles were “both victims of a tragic past.”
Immediately after the meeting, Israel Singer, WJRO chairman and WJC secretary general, looked surprised by the Polish leader’s remarks.
Singer had said in an interview before the meeting that he was hopeful that Kwasniewski would announce a restitution plan that did not exclude private property.
Steinberg of the WJC said, “The meeting lends hope for an improvement in relations, which we all want. It also shows the pitfalls that lie ahead.”
Singer said he hoped that the president “would walk the extra mile as Hungary did.”
Singer stressed the importance of the involvement of the world Jewish community, the local Jewish community and the government in reaching a restitution plan.
“The solution has to fit the problem,” he said.
At the joint meeting, Kwasniewski also spoke about Auschwitz, where a controversy surrounds a developer’s ongoing efforts to construct a shopping mall near the death camp.
The president said the site should be remembered as “a place of martyrdom of the Jewish people.”
Construction of the shopping complex had been stopped, he said.
Poland wants to divide the area around Auschwitz into two zones, he said, adding that about 50,000 Polish citizens live near the Nazi death complex.
“The City of the Living” would encompass the town and its citizens and “The City of the Dead” would be dedicated to memorials of the camps and surrounding areas, Kwasniewski said.
Before Kwasniewski came to New York, he met with President Clinton in Washington, primarily to discuss when Poland might join NATO.
Kwasniewski became Poland’s leader late last year, unseating Lech Walesa.
Walesa’s presidency had been marred by anti-Semitic or apparently anti-Semitic blunders, including not mentioning Jews in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
