Warsaw mayor’s husband, daughter return unlawful cash from property restitution
Family members of Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz each give back 1.1 million zlotys ($318,000) they obtained over building seized from Jewish Holocaust victims
Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz tells an extraordinary session of the Warsaw city council in Warsaw, Poland about irregularities in the restitution of seized Warsaw property to private owners, September 1, 2016. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)
WARSAW, Poland — The husband and daughter of Warsaw’s city mayor have returned money obtained from a property restitution deal that was deemed to be unlawful.
Warsaw town hall said Monday that the husband and daughter of Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz have returned some 1.1 million zlotys ($318,000) each to the city’s coffers.
Gronkiewicz-Waltz, who has been mayor since 2006, has been accused of turning a blind eye to irregularities in the restitution program.
She had been a prominent member of the centrist, pro-European Union party Civic Platform — currently the main, albeit weak, opposition to the right-wing government. The party has recently distanced itself from her and she has said she will not seek re-election.
An apartment building freshly renovated by an international developer group that bought the house from the husband of Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, in Warsaw, Poland, seen on September 19, 2016. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)
The house in question originally belonged to a Jewish family that perished in the Holocaust. It was illegally acquired by speculators right after World War II and later sold to a member of the family of the mayor’s husband. It was then seized by the communist authorities, and recently claimed back by the Warsaw mayor’s family, in a procedure pronounced unlawful.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The restitution process since the collapse of communism has led to many irregularities. The current Polish government has established a commission to investigate and reverse wrong decisions.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
