Poland Asks Germany For WW2 Reparations, 15 Times Given to Jews

By Matis Glenn

Poland announced Thursday that it is seeking $1.3 Trillion in reparations from Germany for losses the country suffered during World War Two, reports Reuters.

Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the leading right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, called the methods used to arrive at the figure “the most limited, conservative” estimates.  “The Germans invaded Poland and did us enormous damage,” he said in a press conference. “The occupation was unbelievably criminal, unbelievably cruel and caused effects that in many cases continue to this day,” he added.

Kaczynski made no mention of the Holocaust or the murder of three million Polish Jews in his speech.

Germany has paid $86 billion in reparations to Holocaust survivors from 1945 until 2018, according to a report published by the U.S. State Department. Poland lost 10 percent of its non-Jewish population during the war, while over two thirds of the the entire European Jewish population were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, including Poles.

Poland is asking for an amount that is 15 times greater than Germany’s collective payments to Jews over the past 70 years.

While the PiS was in power in 2018, Poland passed a law which prohibited accusing Poland of complicity during the Holocaust, contrary to the eye-witness testimony of Holocaust survivors. Survivors are prohibited from sharing their stories, under the current law.

Since coming to power in 2015, the PiS has made reparations part of its platform. In 2017, the party said that Germany has a “moral duty” to compensate Poland, according to the European Council on Foreign Relations.

In 1953, while a Soviet Union satellite state, Poland renounced its rights to war reparations while under pressure from Russia, which wanted to absolve East Germany – then under its control – from any liabilities.

The PiS says that agreement is invalid because it was made under duress, before Poland became independent.

“The German government’s position is unchanged: the reparations question is closed,” a German Foreign Office spokesperson told Reuters. “Poland renounced further reparations a long time ago, in 1953, and has since repeatedly confirmed this.”

Donald Tusk, leader of Poland’s biggest opposition party Civic Platform, told Reuters Thursday that Kaczynski’s announcement was “not about reparations”.

“It’s about an internal political campaign to rebuild support for the ruling party,” he said.

PiS is still ahead of  the Civic Platform in polls, but their lead has shrunk over the last few months, amid surging inflation.