WWII: Poland officially seeks $1.3t from Germany, including for Jews killed by Poles

Formal demand for reparations over Nazi German occupation signed by Warsaw’s foreign minister; Berlin has said it considers the matter settled

By AP and TOI staff 3rd October 2022, 3:51 pm

German soldiers try to dislodge snipers in Warsaw during the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939 in World War II. (AP Photo)

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s foreign minister on Monday signed an official note to Germany requesting the payment of some $1.3 trillion in reparations for the damage inflicted by occupying Nazi Germans during World War II. Poland’s reparations demand includes cases of Jews killed by Poles during the Holocaust.

Zbigniew Rau said the note will be handed to Germany’s Foreign Ministry. The signing comes on the eve of Rau’s meeting in Warsaw with Germany Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who is attending a security conference.

• Rau said the note expresses his view that the two sides should take action “without delay” to address the effects of Germany’s 1939-45 occupation in a “lasting and complex, legally binding as well as material way.”

• He said that would include German reparations as well as solving the issue of looted artworks and archives.

• Poland’s right-wing government insists that Poland is owed reparations for extensive war damage, while Berlin says it has paid compensation to the affected countries, including Poland, and considers the matter closed.

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On the war’s 83rd anniversary, September 1, Poland’s government presented an extensive report on the damages, estimating it at $1.3 trillion.

As the Times of Israel reported last month, included in the list of atrocities are villages that were the sites of Polish pogroms against Jews — perhaps most infamously the village of Jedwabne, where over 300 Jews were burned alive by ethnic Poles — as well as other Jewish deaths that can be tied to Polish citizens.

Jews from Poland and abroad gather for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of a massacre of Jews in Jedwabne, Poland, on July 10, 2016. (AP Photo/Michal Kosc)

The author of the report setting out the demand justified it by arguing that Poland’s Nazi and other occupiers should have prevented those killings.

“Due to Germany’s aggression, the Third Reich & the USSR occupied Polish lands. International conventions state occupiers are responsible for the population’s safety, lives & property. Jedwabne was under USSR & Third Reich occupation, killing the citizens of the Second Republic,” wrote Arkadiusz Mularczyk in a tweet.