Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki insists that the question of Polish compensation for Jewish assets stolen by the Nazi was “definitively resolved,” rebuffing a US call for further action.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Poland last week, called on Warsaw to move forward with legislation to help “those who lost property during the Holocaust era”.
But Morawiecki tells the PAP news agency: “The question of restitution of assets to US citizens of Jewish origin has been definitively resolved.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki arrives at the informal EU summit in Salzburg, Austria, September 20, 2018. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)
“A law of compensation, signed with the United States settles the question, and frees Poland from these responsibilities,” he said. The compensation law to which he was referring was passed in 1960.
“I want to underline that: this subject does not exist,” he adds.
The claims for compensation were based on a fundamental misunderstanding, he said. “Poland was the victim and not the executioner,” he argues.
And Germany had never compensated Poland “for losses inflicted by the Third Reich’s criminal policies,” he adds.
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