WARSAW, Poland — Polish victims of World War II should be able to claim 440 billion euros ($543 billion) from Germany in World War II damages, the head of a parliamentary commission said Thursday.

Arkadiusz Mularczyk of the nationalist ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) based the figure, which the German government rejects, on a 1990 study which found that “there were 13.32 million direct victims of Nazi Germany in Poland.

That figure takes into account deportees, labor and concentration camp prisoners, civilians left maimed during that period, widows, orphans and those who suffered from illnesses which broke out under Nazi occupation and during the conflict.

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Mularczyk said the 1990 study found that reparations of $284 billion should be paid.

“That was the sum in 1990. If we revalue taking into account dollar purchasing power in 2017 we get 1.984 trillion zloty, or $543 billion,” the PAP news agency quoted Mularczyk as saying.

The issue of German reparations had long been regarded as closed — but PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski revived the topic last year.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz earlier this week alluded to differences of opinion with Berlin, including on the reparations issue.

Last year, then German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said the issue had already been settled in August 1953 when Poland’s then communist administration said it renounced any right to war reparations.

At that time Polish ministers put potential compensation at around $1,000 billion (850 billion euros).

Six million Poles — including around three million of Jewish origin — were killed during the six-year Nazi occupation and the capital Warsaw was virtually razed following an uprising in 1944.</s>WARSAW (Reuters) - Technical problems will delay the completion of the Polish section of a U.S. defence shield by two years to 2020, Poland’s defence ministry said on Thursday.

The anti-missile site close to Poland’s northern Baltic Sea coast is part of a NATO defensive umbrella that, when complete, will stretch from Greenland to the Azores.

Poland’s defence ministry said U.S. authorities had told it there had been construction delays at the Redzikowo site that were the responsibility of the contractor.

The U.S. head of the U.S. Missile Defence Agency (MDA), Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, acknowledged the delay at a U.S. Senate hearing on Thursday.

The MDA, a unit of the U.S. Defence Department, is overseeing installation of the Lockheed Martin Co -made ground-based Aegis ballistic missile defence system.

“While we have experienced delays in the military construction portion of the Aegis Ashore effort in Poland, we remain steadfastly committed to delivery of that capability,” Greaves said.

Officials from the U.S.-led NATO alliance, who took control of the umbrella in 2016, have said the whole system is supposed to defend against attacks by states such as Iran and groups such as al Qaeda.

But the scheme has angered Russia, incensed by the show of force by its old Cold War rival in formerly communist Eastern Europe.

Poland’s former defence minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, from the opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, said the delay was meant as a political rebuke to the current government.

“This is the price for the ... lack of trust in PiS (the ruling conservative Law and Justice party),” Siemoniak told Reuters.

Washington sharply criticised a bill that Poland adopted in January that imposes jail terms for suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust, saying it was concerned about the repercussions it could have “on Poland’s strategic interests and relationships”.

Siemoniak said that “in the context of the (Holocaust bill), the lack of trust has deepened ... ‘Technical reasons’ are just a pretext to postpone it until the year 2020. I am convinced that the situation is a result of the deterioration of the allied relations.”

Bartosz Cichocki, a deputy foreign minister, told the PAP state news agency that there was no crisis in Polish-American relations and that the U.S. had informed Poland about the potential delay “weeks before” the Holocaust law was adopted.

As part of the shield, the United States switched on an $800 million site in Romania in May 2016 and broke ground at the site in Poland later that year.

The full shield also includes ships and radar installations across Europe, with command and control run from a U.S. air base in Germany.</s>Poland's President Andrzej Duda speaks during his media announcement about his decision on the Holocaust bill at Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, February 6, 2018. Photo by Agencja Gazeta/Dawid Zuchowicz via Reuters.

Poland's president signed into law on Tuesday a bill that imposes jail terms for suggesting the country was complicit in the Holocaust, prompting sharp criticism from Israel and the United States.

Andrzej Duda said in a televised address the legislation would safeguard Poland's international reputation, but Israel called for amendments, saying the two countries had a "joint responsibility" to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

The United States, a close NATO ally of Poland, expressed disappointment at Duda's decision.

"(This bill) ... protects Polish interests ... our dignity, the historical truth... so that we are not slandered as a state and as a nation," said Duda, an ally of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) which introduced the legislation.

But it also "takes into account the sensitivity of those for whom the issue of historical truth, the memory of the Holocaust is incredibly important", Duda added.

The Polish law would impose prison sentences of up to three years for using the phrase "Polish death camps" and for suggesting "publicly and against the facts" that the Polish nation or state was complicit in Nazi Germany's crimes.

PiS, a socially conservative, nationalist party that has clashed with the European Union and human rights groups on a range of issues since taking power in late 2015, says the new law is needed to ensure that Poles are recognized as victims, not perpetrators, of Nazi aggression in World War Two.

Israel says the law will curb free speech, criminalize basic historical facts and stop any discussion of the role some Poles played in Nazi crimes. Activists say the passage of the bill has encouraged a rise in anti-Semitism.

More than three million of the 3.2 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Jews from across the continent were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland - home to Europe's biggest Jewish community at the time - including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Duda said he would also ask the Constitutional Tribunal for a number of clarifications about the bill. The legislation provides exemptions for academic research and art.

Duda's top foreign policy adviser Krzysztof Szczerski told public television TVP that the law should be sent to the Constitutional Tribunal within a week.

Criticising Duda's move, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement: "Enactment of this law adversely affects freedom of speech and academic inquiry."

Israel said it still hoped Poland would make amendments.

"We hope that within the allotted time, until the court's deliberations are concluded, we will manage to agree on changes and corrections. Israel and Poland hold a joint responsibility to research and preserve the history of the Holocaust," the Israeli government said in a statement on Twitter.

Israel's education minister said on Monday he was "honored" Poland had cancelled his visit to Warsaw this week because he refused to retract his condemnation of the bill.

"The blood of Polish Jews cries from the ground, and no law will silence it," Bennett later said in a statement.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians.

The legislation, which comes at a time of electoral gains for anti-immigrant parties like PiS across Europe, has reopened a painful debate in Poland over the Holocaust.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

The bill will also make it illegal to deny the murder of about 100,000 Poles by units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during World War Two, a move likely to increase tensions with neighboring Ukraine.</s>WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s foreign minister on Wednesday accused Russia of trying to change the political order in Europe by destabilizing Eastern Europe, breaking trans-Atlantic unity and deepening divisions among European allies.

Jacek Czaputowicz described Russian resurgence today as an attempt to restore the power over Eastern Europe that Moscow lost following the collapse of Soviet-backed regimes in 1989.

“Russia is striving to revise the political order in Europe which emerged after 1989 and brought Poland a restoration of its independence,” Czaputowicz said in a speech in parliament in which he outlined his foreign policy priorities for the year.

He accused Russia of seeking to inflame political divisions within European states and between them, “breaking up trans-Atlantic unity and deepening divisions within the European Union.”

Those deepening divisions within the EU include Britain’s decision to leave, as well as Poland’s own disputes with EU bodies and other EU states that have erupted following the election in 2015 of the nationalist ruling party, Law and Justice.

Czaputowicz stressed, however, that despite some criticism of Brussels, his government seeks a strong EU. He described Poland’s membership in the EU as a factor that strengthens Poland’s position in the international arena and says it brings many political and economic benefits.

He also said that this year Poland would seek to obtain compensation from Germany for losses suffered World War II, when Poland was attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany. It is an issue that party leaders began raising last summer.</s>WARSAW (Reuters) - Technical problems will delay the completion of the Polish section of a U.S. defence shield by two years to 2020, Poland’s defence ministry said on Thursday.

The anti-missile site close to Poland’s northern Baltic Sea coast is part of a NATO defensive umbrella that, when complete, will stretch from Greenland to the Azores.

Poland’s defence ministry said U.S. authorities had told it there had been construction delays at the Redzikowo site that were the responsibility of the contractor.

The U.S. head of the U.S. Missile Defence Agency (MDA), Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, acknowledged the delay at a U.S. Senate hearing on Thursday.

The MDA, a unit of the U.S. Defence Department, is overseeing installation of the Lockheed Martin Co -made ground-based Aegis ballistic missile defence system.

“While we have experienced delays in the military construction portion of the Aegis Ashore effort in Poland, we remain steadfastly committed to delivery of that capability,” Greaves said.

Officials from the U.S.-led NATO alliance, who took control of the umbrella in 2016, have said the whole system is supposed to defend against attacks by states such as Iran and groups such as al Qaeda.

But the scheme has angered Russia, incensed by the show of force by its old Cold War rival in formerly communist Eastern Europe.

Poland’s former defence minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, from the opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, said the delay was meant as a political rebuke to the current government.

“This is the price for the ... lack of trust in PiS (the ruling conservative Law and Justice party),” Siemoniak told Reuters.

Washington sharply criticised a bill that Poland adopted in January that imposes jail terms for suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust, saying it was concerned about the repercussions it could have “on Poland’s strategic interests and relationships”.

Siemoniak said that “in the context of the (Holocaust bill), the lack of trust has deepened ... ‘Technical reasons’ are just a pretext to postpone it until the year 2020. I am convinced that the situation is a result of the deterioration of the allied relations.”

Bartosz Cichocki, a deputy foreign minister, told the PAP state news agency that there was no crisis in Polish-American relations and that the U.S. had informed Poland about the potential delay “weeks before” the Holocaust law was adopted.

As part of the shield, the United States switched on an $800 million site in Romania in May 2016 and broke ground at the site in Poland later that year.

The full shield also includes ships and radar installations across Europe, with command and control run from a U.S. air base in Germany.</s>WARSAW - Poland will this year look into ways of getting compensation for its destruction during World War II, Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said on Wednesday.



"We will talk about the need to compensate Poles for the losses suffered during World War II," he told parliament in a section of a speech focused on Polish-German relations.



"We will seek legal, political and financial ways of (obtaining) due compensation," he added, as he presented his foreign policy goals for 2018.</s>WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's foreign minister on Wednesday accused Russia of trying to change the political order in Europe by destabilizing Eastern Europe, breaking trans-Atlantic unity and deepening divisions among European allies.

Jacek Czaputowicz described Russian resurgence today as an attempt to restore the power over Eastern Europe that Moscow lost following the collapse of Soviet-backed regimes in 1989.

"Russia is striving to revise the political order in Europe which emerged after 1989 and brought Poland a restoration of its independence," Czaputowicz said in a speech in parliament in which he outlined his foreign policy priorities for the year.

He accused Russia of seeking to inflame political divisions within European states and between them, "breaking up trans-Atlantic unity and deepening divisions within the European Union."

Those deepening divisions within the EU include Britain's decision to leave, as well as Poland's own disputes with EU bodies and other EU states that have erupted following the election in 2015 of the nationalist ruling party, Law and Justice.

Czaputowicz stressed, however, that despite some criticism of Brussels, his government seeks a strong EU. He described Poland's membership in the EU as a factor that strengthens Poland's position in the international arena and says it brings many political and economic benefits.

He also said that this year Poland would seek to obtain compensation from Germany for losses suffered World War II, when Poland was attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany. It is an issue that party leaders began raising last summer.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>World War II altered not only the fate of nations but also that of millions of families in Europe. From the viewpoint of Poland, it was the end of a multicultural, multiethnic world that had flourished for more than seven centuries. The borders of prewar Poland in the east included cities such as Nowogrodek, Rowne, and Stanislawow.

Nowogrodek was the birthplace of Adam Mickiewicz, one of the greatest ever Polish poets, who was personally involved in the process of creating a Jewish legion as part of his efforts to fight for Polish independence in the 19th century. Rowne was the birthplace of the mother of Israeli author Amos Oz, whose novel A Tale of Love and Darkness inspired actress Natalie Portman to make a brilliant movie about Israel’s difficult beginnings seen through the lens of a family of Polish Jews. As for Stanislawow, it is a place close to my heart. My mother’s family comes from this city, which is now called Ivano-Frankivsk and lies within Ukrainian borders.

The world my mother knew ended when Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia invaded Poland in 1939. In Stanislawow, my close family rescued Jews; the same happened in the city of Nawarzyce on my father’s side. I grew up surrounded by these stories. They taught me that in the darkest hour Polish-Jewish bonds proved to be stronger than the unimaginable brutality of the Nazi German occupation.

This is the background for understanding my government’s recently adopted bill dealing with the falsification of Polish history. It has a very simple aim: to protect the truth about World War II and about those who were truly responsible for it. It penalizes public accusations against Poland, contrary to all facts, of responsibility or complicity in Nazi German crimes. Attributing complicity in the Holocaust to Poland blurs the responsibility of Nazi Germany.

During World War II, Poland experienced a German- and Soviet-orchestrated genocide in which more than 6 million Polish citizens perished, half of whom were Polish Jews. Poland never created a government that collaborated with the Third Reich and never formed an SS division.

Instead, when the Holocaust started, Poland’s government in exile endeavored to make the world hear about the tragedy of the Polish Jews and to convince the Allies to undertake appropriate action. The Polish Underground State not only created an organized platform to help Jews called the Polish Council to Aid Jews, known by its code name Zegota, but also punished by death those who helped Germans in murdering Jews. Meanwhile, the Home Army, the largest underground force in occupied Europe — 400,000 people strong, including members of my family — resisted the occupation. Graves of these brave Polish soldiers can be found in Siberia, Iraq, North Africa, Monte Cassino, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland.

And even as the Nazi Germans made it punishable by death to hide or assist Jews, many Polish families engaged in this noble, and indeed heroic, enterprise. Hans Frank, the de facto ruler of Nazi-occupied Poland, once admitted that if he were required to print posters about every seven Poles who were killed, there would not have been enough wood in Poland to make paper necessary to produce them.

Having said all that, we must also remember that there were individual cases of Poles who collaborated with the Nazi Germans, as well as those who murdered Jews and other innocent people. This fact has never been denied in Poland and is acknowledged in our educational system. We must bear in mind, however, that each of these heinous crimes should be judged individually and that individual acts of wickedness should not burden with responsibility the entire nation, which was conquered and enslaved by Nazi Germany.

Only about 300,000 Polish Jews survived the war. This constituted as little as 10 percent of the prewar Polish Jewish population. Each one of those lost innocent lives was a tragedy, and the destruction of a nation on such a scale is heartbreaking. But those who did survive, in almost every case, depended on some sort of help from the Poles. Those Polish Jews who encountered Nazi Germans did not have any chance to survive.

In the 16th century, a famous Krakow-based rabbi, Moses Isserles, called Poland a paradis Judaeorum, a “paradise for Jews” — four centuries later, this paradise, in a tragic twist of fate, became the place where Nazi Germany built Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Using a phrase such as “Polish death camps” is a disgrace not only to Poland but also to the victims of Adolf Hitler’s state. Our bill has never been intended to deny the right of people who survived the Holocaust to speak about their personal tragedies or to limit any kind of freedom of research or artistic freedom.

But the truth remains that Poland decided to fight against Hitler and the Holocaust. Those individuals who disobeyed the orders of the Polish government in exile, and contributed to the Jewish tragedy, were criminals and should be condemned.

Not only Israel but Poland, too, is morally obliged to protect the memory of the Holocaust. We wish to be partners in these efforts, and no misunderstanding should ever lead to any conflict between our nations. We should never forget that the Holocaust was one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Poland.

Today, Poland is committed to the renewed flourishing of Jewish life in our country. The culture of Polish Jews is an inseparable element of our Polish heritage, of which we are deeply proud.

Pope John Paul II believed that anti-Semitism was a great sin and stood firmly against it. The Polish government is faithful to his teaching. At the same time, as someone who survived the war in occupied Poland, he stood strongly against blaming the country for complicity in Nazi German crimes and underlined the role that Poles played in rescuing the Jews while they were under brutal occupation.

Soon there will no longer be eyewitnesses to Nazi German crimes. It is our collective moral duty to transmit the lessons — and warnings — to our children.</s>Recent alarming events in Poland, most notably a law “protecting the reputation of the Polish nation” by criminalizing certain speech regarding the Holocaust, have led me to reflect on my own relationship with that country. It’s a relationship that spans three decades, dozens of visits, various negotiations — and the cultivation of many cherished friends and colleagues.

I made my first visit in the summer of 1987 as a midlevel professional working for a project to build a Holocaust museum on the National Mall here. Upon seeing my first communist country, I was struck that everything was gray — the buildings, the interiors, the clothing. That turned out to be a somewhat superficial impression.

No one forgets the gut-wrenching experience of their first (or any) visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. My first visit was made special by a remarkable woman, historian Teresa Swiebocka, who was my guide. In spite of the many political and cultural restraints, and all the propaganda she had been fed, she was devoted to historical truth. She was not gray. She was deeply immersed in Holocaust history, and as she walked the blood-soaked earth of Birkenau, she seemed to know what had transpired on every inch of it. She spoke with great conviction and sensitivity.

Teresa’s knowledge was not based on the communist-controlled “history” designed to advance its political agenda. Instead of conflating all victims of Nazi crimes as “the victims of fascism,” she understood the singular targeting of the Jews, as well as the immense suffering of non-Jewish Poles, Roma and others. Sadly, Teresa passed away in 2016.

Over the years I witnessed Poland’s exciting emergence out of communism. Every year brought more changes. Poland became colorful. Its people blossomed from under the weight of oppression endured throughout much of the 20th century under the domination of its two totalitarian neighbors, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. As in previous centuries, great powers saw Poland as something to be divided, occupied or destroyed.

In addition to Teresa, I developed many friendships along the way with the growing number of Holocaust scholars, memorial site professionals, museum directors, educators and officials. They were, and are, deeply dedicated to preserving history and teaching new generations. Having made this a lifelong commitment, they see the Holocaust as fundamental to Polish history, Jewish history, European history and human history. To them, these are not mutually exclusive.

Poland was ground zero for the post-Soviet reclamation of the truth about the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes, much of which happened on Polish soil under the brutal German occupation. Since the fall of communism, successive Polish governments of various political parties extended — and often expanded — the nation’s commitment to the preservation of the six German killing centers in Poland. The Germans and several other countries provided some funding, but Poland assumed the major financial, historical and moral responsibility. The enhancements to Birkenau, Belzec, Majdanek, Chelmno and other sites are powerful and dignified. Poland became a world leader in the cause of Holocaust remembrance and education.

There were various issues along the way, such as the controversies and public debates about a convent at Auschwitz, crosses at Birkenau and the role of non-Jewish Poles in the murder of the Jews of Jedwabne. They were not easy, and each time disturbing instances of nationalism and anti-Semitism surfaced. But each time fidelity to history and memory carried the day.

Then, in 2017, 30 years after my first visit, I had a very different sort of experience. I happened to come across a small demonstration outside the president’s palace in Warsaw, where I encountered another woman who left a strong impression.

She was part of a nationalistic, religious group that regularly pays homage to the late President Lech Kaczynski, who was killed in a plane crash in 2010. This group believes he was murdered by the Russians as part of an anti-Polish conspiracy.

As I walked toward the group, an attractive young woman marched right up to me, pointed her finger confrontationally, almost touching my chest, and asked in perfect English, “Are you a Christian?” After I told her no, she gave me a sharp lecture about Mary and Poland.

The final Polish woman who comes to mind is most likely not alive but someone I wish I could have met. I only know her as Mrs. Orlewska and as she appears in the testimony of Holocaust survivor Stefa Kupfer:

“Now my mother was very Orthodox. Mrs. Orlewska was deeply religious and she respected my mother’s religion also. She knew that it had to be kosher. So she took one pot which she said, she’ll scrub up real good. And she won’t use any fat at all. So she cooked potato soup for us every single day. … And she had one spoon — she bought a new spoon. And she had this one pot which she always used only for us. My mother didn’t have any un-kosher food for the duration of the hiding. … But this is how Mrs. Orlewska respected my mother’s religiousness.

“And my mother would say, ‘Take a little money from this.’ She would not accept. And Mama would say, ‘Take a little money when you go to mass and give it to the poor.’ And Mrs. Orlewska would say, ‘There are no poorer people than you. Your children have no fresh air. You have no light. You have no freedom. Nobody is poorer than you.’ She wouldn’t take a penny. Never. … She did it out of the goodness of her heart. She was incredible.”

I wish Stefa’s testimony ended there, but it doesn’t. She concludes by adding:

“And we didn’t even have a chance to thank her. Because … after the liberation when my mother went back to her just to tell her that we’re going back to our hometown, she says, ‘Please don’t stay in touch with me. Don’t ever come back. I don’t want my neighbors to see you. I am afraid for the safety of my life. My Polish people, my Polish brothers, will not forgive me for saving a Jewish life.’”

Poland’s many complexities and contradictions are on full view today. The country has changed dramatically over 30 years, and now seems to be changing again. Perhaps my fondness for Poland and my abiding respect for so many exceptional professionals have blurred my ability to see the situation clearly.

But I remain hopeful that the many Teresas and Mrs. Orlewskas in Poland will ultimately prevail. It may not be in the short term, and that’s why those of us who admire Poland and realize its vitally important role in the world cannot afford complacency. On each of my future visits, I will support my friends and colleagues, confront the deniers and reactionaries, test my hope, and look for more remarkable Polish women.

Sara J. Bloomfield is director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.</s>BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany and Poland said on Wednesday they would consider setting up a commission to explore Polish calls for reparations for German actions during World War Two.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has revived the issue of war compensation although the government has stopped short of making an official demand.

 New Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz and his German counterpart, Sigmar Gabriel, said at their first meeting they did not want the issue to harm bilateral relations.

 Both ministers stressed the importance of the relationship between the neighbors and EU partners but acknowledged that the question of reparations was not going away.

 "We have a clear legal position that all questions about reparations have been cleared up," Gabriel said, adding that Poland's democratically elected government accepted that in the early 1990s after the fall of Communism.

 "But there is no point in talking about the legal situation if there is a debate within society in a neighboring country," he said. 

 "One way ahead could be to ask experts to look at this," he said, making clear there was no concrete plan so far and the makeup of such a panel would have to be decided but it may constitute historians and lawyers.

 Six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews were killed during the war and the capital Warsaw was razed to the ground in 1944 after a failed uprising in which 200,000 civilians died. 

 After the war, the victorious Allies awarded Poland a large swathe of German land as compensation for Polish territory annexed by the Soviet Union in the east. 

 "We want to have this debate," said Czaputowicz, who said he accepted Gabriel's suggestion. 

 Relations between Poland and Germany have improved in recent years but have taken a knock since the nationalist-leaning PiS won a parliamentary election in 2015. 

 The PiS, which says Berlin wields too much influence within the European Union, frequently talks about Poland's suffering under the German occupation in an effort it says aims to promote patriotism.

 

 (Reporting by Madeline Chambers)
Poland's ruling Law and Justice's Arkadiusz Mularczyk says Germany owes Polish victims of World War II a total of 1.984 trillion zloty (US$543 billion, 440 billion euros) in compensation.