Israel: Polish citizens face ‘growing hatred’ after approval of communist-era property law

Polish citizens in Israel are facing such hatred that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Sunday that he had decided to “safely bring back home the children of Poland’s ambassador to Israel,” Haaretz has reported.

The situation has apparently deteriorated since the Polish government enacted a law that stops Poles, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, from claiming ownership of property expropriated during the communist era. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has approved the law, despite requests by Israel and several world leaders not to.

In response to the criticism by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid that the law “damages both the memory of the Holocaust and the rights of its victims,” Duda said, “I unequivocally reject this rhetoric and say it with all my strength: Linking this act with the Holocaust raises my firm objection.” He told Poland’s PAP news agency that he hoped the law would end an “era of legal chaos” and “re-privatisation mafias.”

READ: Israel summons Poland’s ambassador over WWII bill

Updated on 16 August 2021 at 13:13 to correct the previous mention that the law was a WWII property law when it was a community-era property law.