Daily Times

WARSAW: A Warsaw court had no questions when a landlord known for brutal evictions sought the return of an apartment house seized under communism from a Jewish woman. It was tenants who came forward with information that blocked the restitution, showing the woman — who would have been 106— died in 1974.

Poland is one of very few former communist countries that have no formal process for returning or compensating people for real estate seized, or “nationalized,” under communism following World War II. A number of draft restitution laws were knocked down by politicians, who argued that Poland could not afford an across-the-board solution. This week, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law and Justice party, announced plans for a commission to deal with the restitution and the irregularities that have resulted in the eviction of thousands of Warsaw residents.

The issue of restitution in Poland has a long and sometimes sordid history, punctuated by stories of big money, forged documents, evictions, even murder. Kaczynski’s announcement Tuesday took on political overtones as he targeted his main political opponents citing a “great injustice that has taken place in Warsaw,” and claiming to expose a “Mafia” made up of city “elites.”