Restitution and the "Gold train"

[Annelie]

Can I add that its not just the Jewish community that lost property and money.

There are many others other than Jews.

[wm]

wm, Here is the follow-up to the Forbes stories that you seem to have missed...or maybe not.

I miss everything, I don't care about contemporary politics, don't watch TV or read newspapers. it's so last century anyway.

Still it wasn't Forbes that accused, it was Mr Seweryn Aszkenazy. Fearing legal action by wealthy adversaries, Forbes retracted a few details. He, as far I know didn't.
As a businessman myself, although small one I can only say this: these, described by Aszkenazy patterns of behavior are so familiar it hurts.
People like him can't win. A valuable property without an owner, "guarded" by faceless, low-paid bureaucrats always ends up in the hands of unscrupulous people.

Do you remember Mr Banaś?
At one point he says that charity, like of those convents, breeds criminals in large numbers. This top-down because it feels good charity you support will too.
The Insights of simple people, in this case a son of a poor peasant are frequently amazing.

[4thskorpion]

Jewish media control conspiracy to silence Polish critics...will we quoting from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion next?

[wm]

Why are you changing Mr Aszkenazy ethnic background? He is a Jew, and his supporters are of Jewish origin too.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

the Jewish assets belong to their respective owners and their heirs, not to some nebulous Jewish organizations supported by the US

Exactly this.

Why are you changing Mr Aszkenazy ethnic background? He is a Jew, and his supporters are of Jewish origin too.

Yes, he is a Jewish Holocaust survivor, originally from Tarnopol (Ternopil) - now in Ukraine.

So he is Ukrainian-Jewish, we could say...

Jewish media control conspiracy to silence Polish critics...will we quoting from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion next?

Oh dear, what conspiracy? Jewish people are not a monolith, they are divided into quarrelling political factions with different worldviews which dislike each other. They don't act as one body. That said, if one Jewish person disagrees with another, they accuse each other of being Non-Jews (as in this case with Mr Severyn Ashkenazy suddenly becoming "Polish" when he criticizes other Jewish people).

[ChristopherPerrien]

It would be so interesting to see Poland's reaction to Putin, and vice versa, if the "Amber Room" was found on this train (insert Machiavellian smile emoji).

That is the only thing I would like to see found on this train(though it was most probably destroyed in 1944). If by some miracle it is on this "train", it being a "national treasure" of Russia, Poland would have no standing AT ALL to hold it.

If it ain't there, then hopefully there is nothing on the train, Armored train cars were not uncommon in the East in WWII, or perhaps no train at all.

Stereotypes seemed to running amok already.

[4thskorpion]

the Jewish assets belong to their respective owners and their heirs, not to some nebulous Jewish organizations supported by the US

Exactly this.

Why are you changing Mr Aszkenazy ethnic background? He is a Jew, and his supporters are of Jewish origin too.

Yes, he is a Jewish Holocaust survivor, originally from Tarnopol (Ternopil) - now in Ukraine.

So he is Ukrainian-Jewish, we could say...

Jewish media control conspiracy to silence Polish critics...will we quoting from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion next?

Oh dear, what conspiracy? Jewish people are not a monolith, they are divided into quarrelling political factions with different worldviews which dislike each other. They don't act as one body. That said, if one Jewish person disagrees with another, they accuse each other of being Non-Jews (as in this case with Mr Severyn Ashkenazy suddenly becoming "Polish" when he criticizes other Jewish people).

Peter, the publishers of the Polish edition of Forbes magazine issued an apology /retraction for publishing false allegations by the authors of the quoted articles!

The intention of posting the Forbes piece in the first place was a feeble attempt to discredit Jewish restitution claims in Poland by implying that these (false) claims of Jewish underhandedness over rights to Holocust era assets in Poland are part of the reason that the Polish government does not have Holocaust asset restitution enshrined in law (the only affected country not to do so) and has even broken Tusk's restitution commitment made three years ago.

The postings are by someone with a blatantly anti-Jewish agenda evident in any thread remotely connected with Poland and the Jews.

[wm]

The retraction was forced by the owner - Axel Springer SE. It is the usual avoidance of anything controversial.

This kind of pilfering (or destruction) of any property without owner is well known in Poland, it has been absolutely massive from the time the communist regime self-destruct. Another unintended consequence of those 1945 efforts to create a socialist state.

[4thskorpion]

wm, the retraction was forced by Axel Springer group because the allegations made were false and false allegations potentially lead to litigation!

[4thskorpion]

"Most former owners whose property had been seized by the Nazis and their collaborators lost title to their property as a result of the “Post-German and Deserted Properties Decree.” Under the decree, any property an owner (as of September 1, 1939) did not recover, within 10 years of 1945, passed to the state.

Of course, in the 1945-1955 period during which claims were accepted, virtually no Jews, much less Jewish property owners, were left in Poland; most had been murdered, while few that did survive the war returned to or stayed in Poland. Thus, they could not recover their seized property pursuant to the decree in the time period specified. And, of course, during that time, Jewish Holocaust survivors were fully occupied with other, more immediate matters –such as searching for family members and friends, and trying to rebuild their lives, typically in foreign lands, with alien cultures and languages, bereft of their possessions. In sum, to require the survivors to return to Poland and claim their stolen property in what, often, was a hostile post-war environment was, too put it mildly, unrealistic.

While this decree is no longer in force, titles to properties apparently continue to accrue to the state by virtue of its provisions. Indeed, the Supreme Court Of Poland affirmed this presumption –that properties which were not recovered between 1945-1955 escheat to the state –in 1987. "

Source: WRJ-Polish Restitution.

[wm]

No, they were retracted because a civil lawsuit can be a slow, expensive, and arduous process, of an uncertain outcome. No matter if the allegations are false or true, tiny or huge.

The fact is the articles are still available on the Forbes site, after small corrections were made.
The facts presented there are relatively easily to check.

And as I said, it wasn't Forbes' allegations. The story was based on allegations made by, among others:
Jakub Szadaj: the founder and chairman of the Independent Jewish Community,
Menachem Daum: an Orthodox Jewish documentary film-maker,
Severyn Ashkenazy: the founder of the Beit Warszawa Jewish Cultural Association,
the U.S. magazine The Jewish Week.

Wanna Buy A Historic Shul In Poland?

Since 2002, Jewish communal reclamation in Poland has reaped millions of dollars. Critics complain of a lack of financial transparency.

As Menachem Daum walked through the streets of Dzialoszyce, Poland, in 2002, he saw the roofless synagogue built in 1854, a poignant reminder of the vibrant Jewish community that had once existed there. On a return trip he made three years later, Daum was approached by a man who seemed to be in charge.

“How much do you want to pay me for it?” he asked Daum.

“I was startled by the question,” Daum said recently, recalling the situation. “The idea of selling this historical and sacred site and razing it for a housing development or shopping mall was just unthinkable.”

“But obviously,” Daum continued, “it wasn’t unthinkable for the man who was asking me this question and who had the legal authority to sell this synagogue to me or to anyone of his choosing.”

[...]

“I left [...]” Daum said, “with the realization that I was hopelessly naïve about what is really going on beneath the surface of Jewish life in today’s Poland.”

[4thskorpion]

"Since 1990, the Polish government has made commitments and proposed numerous draft laws –none enacted –to deal with the restitution of confiscated private property. In 2001, for example, the Sejm passed a bill, proposed by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, which provided for compensation of 50% of the value of the confiscated property in issue, but only to Polish citizens. President Aleksander Kwasniewski vetoed the bill.

Subsequently, during the successive administrations of Prime Ministers Marek Belka, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, virtually identical versions of a bill, first issued in 2005 –entitled “On Compensation for Real Estate and Some Other Property Assets Seized by the State” –were proposed, but never voted on by the Sejm. The bills did not provide for in rem restitution, excluded compensation for property seized in Warsaw, offered severely limited compensation, and proposed a burdensome claims process.

Around October 2008, a similar bill was proposed by the administration of Prime Minister Tusk. Prime Minister Tusk who, months earlier, had promised that a previous bill would be passed by the Sejm by the fall of 2008, pledged to present the October 2008 bill to the Sejm for a vote by year’s end. There was no vote on the bill; it was noteven submitted to the Sejm –either in 2008, or any time after.

Later, in May 2009, another (and what turns out to be the most recent) bill –resembling the draft legislation proposed in October 2008 in all significant respects –appeared on a government website. That bill also was never submitted to the Sejm for consideration."

Source: WJR-Polish Restitution.

[wm]

Found on a news site:

The Gold train can't possibly be Polish.
The people who saw it say, they found a clean toilet and a compartment without beer stains.
But they haven't lost hope, yet. There is a good possibility that tables with chewing gum stuck under them, or overflowing trash cans will be found - says one of the explorers.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

It would be so interesting to see Poland's reaction to Putin, and vice versa, if the "Amber Room" was found on this train

That is the only thing I would like to see found on this train (though it was most probably destroyed in 1944). If by some miracle it is on this "train", it being a "national treasure" of Russia, Poland would have no standing AT ALL to hold it.

If it turns out to be "Amber Room", Poland may try to exchange it for Polish national treasures from Russia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War ... viet_Union

(...) Both Germany and the countries of the former Soviet Union still have much Polish material looted during World War II.[34][35][36] In particular, recovering looted art from the former states of the Soviet Union, such as Russia, is proving difficult.[37][38] (...)

[ChristopherPerrien]

Well Poland was basically a created country with little standing until the Versailles treaty that simply created "Poland". Half of Poland was Prussia, which was German Empire. To argue differently is to invite getting run over by either Germany or Russia.

What "pray tell" treasures of the original "Duchy" of Poland could equal the Amber Room?