Thanks to Ewa, I have referenced again the recent article on compensation
for Kresy residents who lost their property (not to mention years of - if
not all of - their lives) to the Soviets as a result of the War.
I should note that "citizens" would include all those deported or displaced
during the war who never returned to Poland.
I would welcome your feedback on this, especially from Janusz Giedrojc and
others dealing with compensation issue. I wonder if it is not "too late" to
register a claim, especially as this seems to be heading into a class-action
of some kind.
Would anybody know how to get in touch with Andrzej Korzeniowski, president
of the Polish Society of the Kresy Residents-State Treasury Creditors
(Ogólnopolskie Stowarzyszenie Kresowian Wierzycieli Skarbu Panstwa)?
Thanks
Stefan
Here is the article:
Warsaw Voice
April 1, 2001 No. 13 (649)
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KEEPING PROMISES
The Legacy of Relocation
Paradoxically, Poland moved westward immediately following World War II,
when from a geopolitical point of view Poland entered the sphere of
influence of its former eastern neighbor, the Soviet Union.
By virtue of a decision made by the time's great national powers, confirmed
by pacts in Yalta and Potsdam, the borders of the Polish state were
radically changed. Postwar Poland lost its eastern territories, which were
incorporated into the Soviet republics of Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. In
turn, the country gained land which until 1939 had belonged to Germany. The
decision made by the "big four" resulted not only in changes of state
borders, but also in a huge wave of migration, changing the ethnic make-up
and national status in the Kresy, as Poland's former eastern territories are
called.
The repercussions of those migrations continue to this day. There are many
unsettled matters stemming from those times, including the question of
indemnities for Polish citizens whose property remained beyond the eastern
border.
The communist government of postwar Poland, initially formed on the
territory of the Soviet Union, aimed to make Poland an ethnically uniform
country. The same was true of the objectives of Soviet governments, which
sought to rid themselves of the Polish element in Belarus, Lithuania and
Ukraine. In order to achieve these ends, in 1944 both parties began
organizing great population shifts.
During these dislocations, Belarussians and Ukrainians were shipped East
within the areas defined by the decisions from Yalta. The East, in turn, saw
the displacement of Polish citizens who had lived in the territories which
were incorporated into the Soviet state.
The agreements with Ukraine and Belarus stated that between Sept. 15 and
Oct. 15, 1944, there would be a registration of people willing to resettle,
and the process of resettlement would take place between Oct. 15, 1944, and
Feb. 1, 1945. The agreement with Lithuania assumed slightly different dates:
the registration would be carried out between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 1944, and
the relocation was supposed to start Dec. 1, 1944 and continue through April
1, 1945.
The authorities of the Soviet republics were responsible for the
transportation of people, while the costs of transportation were to be
divided between the Soviet Union and Poland. The agreements also stated that
for Polish citizens dislocated from the Kresy, the indemnity for property
left in the East, called zabuz?an?skie (located beyond the Bug River)
property, would be paid by the Polish State Treasury .
Thus the communist government of Poland relieved the authorities of the
Soviet Union from the duty to pay any indemnity to Polish citizens. This was
confirmed in protocols supplementing the agreements of 1944, signed in 1947
on behalf of the government of the Republic of Poland. According to the
contents of the agreements, this was not supposed to be indemnity as such,
but an equivalent payment for property left in the East. This is important,
since the word "equivalent" as interpreted by dislocated populations meant
the exact equivalent of real estate left behind the eastern border of
postwar Poland.
The resettlement action from the East took much longer than had been stated
in the agreements, and involved 1.7 million Polish citizens. These people
were mainly resettled in the western territories of Poland according to its
postwar borders. As the "equivalent" that the Polish-Soviet agreements had
promised, the people dislocated from the East received former German
households in western Poland and urban real estate belonging to the State
Treasury.
Theoretically, the households and real estate distributed among the
newcomers was supposed to be comparable in size to the properties left
behind the eastern border. In practice, however, this was difficult or even
impossible to implement, especially since the agriculture policy of the
communist government stood in the way. The government tried various ways to
establish collective farming in the Polish countryside instead of private
farming. The distribution of big farms among individual farmers thus
contradicted the agriculture policy of the communist authorities.
Similar constraints awaited resettled city dwellers, who received urban real
estate, but only smaller than 220 sq m, a step down for all those who had
left large farms and more valuable real estate beyond the Bug River.
The distribution of equivalent property and compensation was coupled with a
whole range of executive regulations, hindering the State Treasury's
fulfillment of its liabilities to displaced individuals. It's enough to say
that indemnity procedures did not concern the simple allocation of specified
sums, real estate or land, but incorporated the value of the zabuz?an?skie
property, as estimated in the insurance valuation, into the fee for
purchasing buildings and land from the State Treasury, as specified by the
authorities.
In practice, displaced citizens became State Treasury suppliants, and it
depended on the decision of bureaucrats whether the value of the
zabuz?an?skie property was included in the fee for real estate given as
compensation for property lost behind the eastern border. Due to
bureaucratic obstacles, unclear interpretations of executive acts and the
difficulties in obtaining confirmation from Soviet authorities concerning
lost property, the question of indemnities for zabuz?an?skie property was
never finalized by the authorities of communist Poland. Even now, a large
group of citizens has not received any compensation.
The changes brought about in Poland by the events of 1989 revived hopes of
solving the lingering problem among displaced people and their descendants.
According to estimates by both the government and organizations associating
zabuz?an?skie creditors of the Polish State Treasury, there are still around
90,000 petitions for equivalents of property left in the East waiting to be
analyzed and processed.
"This is more or less the number of petitioners who have not yet been given
the chance to satisfy their claims," said Andrzej Korzeniowski, president of
the Polish Society of the Kresy Residents-State Treasury Creditors.
The State Treasury creditors had hoped that the reprivatization law would
solve their problems. The law, however, is a dead issue, leaving the
question of indemnity for property left in the East a matter regulated by
the previous legislation, which stems from the agreements made in 1944 and
1947.
This state of affairs by no means satisfies those dislocated from the East.
When vetoing the poorly constructed reprivatization bill, President
Aleksander Kwas?niewski advised residents of the Kresy to seek justice in
court by bringing an class-action suit against the State Treasury. Displaced
people and their descendants say they will follow this advice.
"Since the continuity of Polish statehood is valid, and communist Poland was
an element of the continuity, it is the duty of today's Third Republic of
Poland to fulfill [communist Poland's] liabilities," said Korzeniowski.
Krzysztof Renik
