Polish president signs law restricting property claims

Poland's president has signed legislation that restricts the rights of former Polish property owners to regain property expropriated by the country’s communist regime

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's president signed legislation Saturday that restricts the rights of former Polish property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, to regain property seized by the country’s communist regime. The law, which was passed by parliament on Wednesday, is an amendment to Poland’s administrative law, which will prevent property ownership and other administrative decisions from being declared void after 30 years. The legislation has angered Israel and the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on President Andrzej Duda this week to veto it, arguing that it would severely restrict the “process for Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners, to obtain restitution for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland’s communist era.” Israel also opposed the law, with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid saying it “damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims.”