Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017

Prior to Second World War Poland had a Jewish population of over 3.3 million, of which only 369,000 survived the war and the Holocaust.[5] After the war ended, the communist government in Poland, in a rush to rebuild the German destroyed country, enacted a wide program of nationalization taking over both Polish and Jewish owned property.[6] Most of the property seized and nationalized by the communists after the war, including most of the properties in the Polish capital of Warsaw, belonged to non-Jewish Poles and estimates of Jewish claims are just between 15%-20% of all potential claims.[7][8]

Jewish properties which were confiscated by the Nazis and subsequently nationalized by the Soviet installed Communist authorities in Poland [9] as "abandoned properties". According to Dariusz Stola, the laws nationalizing "abandoned property" "...have been imposed with, among other things, the possessions of murdered Jews in mind",[10] though they did not include explicit ethnic criteria;[7][8] however the near-complete destruction of Poland's Jewry, along with the fact that only Jewish property was officially confiscated as such by the Nazi regime, suggest "abandoned property" was generally understood to be "Jewish property",[11] and most of the victims' property was classified as "abandoned".[10] In Warsaw, the post-war Bierut Decree transferred all land, regardless of the identity of the owner, to the control of the city; while in theory owners could demand for compensation, in practice such claims were mostly refused or ignored.[12] The "abandoned" properties are estimated to have a total value in the billions of dollars.[13] Between 1948 and 1971 the People's Republic of Poland signed treaties with 14 other countries housing former property owners, and paying equivalent of today's 1.2 billion zlotys.[8] In 1960 a treaty signed between People's Republic of Poland and United States stated that all compensation claims in US would be directed to and dealt with by the US government, as Poland paid 40 million dollars (in 1960 values) to US authorities, settling over 10,169 claims, with over 5,022 claim awards, with $100,737,681.63 in the principal amount, plus interest in the amount of $51,051,825.01, with the amount of payment being 33% of principal.[14][8] Some communal Jewish property was also restored in 1997, after Jewish organizations used the precedent of the restoration of Catholic Church property to make file claims of their own.[15]

After the fall of Communism some claimants were able to recover their property;[9] however, the small numbers of successful claimants "did not change the trend of Jewish property in non-Jewish hands."[16] The recovery process proved highly contentious and controversial, opening the door to fraud and corruption,[17][18] and a general "sense of injustice."[1] In Warsaw in particular it was further complicated by the destruction of Warsaw during the War, with 90% of buildings having been demolished by German troops. In 1997 Poland as part of wider program returned or gave out compensation in regards to religious Jewish communal property[15]

In 2018 the Polish government prepared a draft restitution legislation that would allow return of 20% of property value in nature to close descendants of heirs, that had Polish citizenship and were on territory of Poland when their property was nationalized. The law was criticized by Jewish organizations and put on hold.[8] As of late 2018 Poland still had no single, unified law regarding reprivatisation, and the process has been slow and based on a patchwork of several smaller, limited laws.[19] As of 2018 22,000 individuals received compensation.[8]

In addition to the above, the bill contains provision calling for restitution of property even if the owners died without leaving any descendants - the so-called heirless property. It is an accepted customary international law that heirless property becomes property of the state.[21]

The Terezin declaration states that "in some states heirless property could serve as a basis for addressing the material necessities of needy Holocaust (Shoah) survivors and to ensure ongoing education about the Holocaust (Shoah), its causes and consequences". The JUST act requires reporting on the adherence to Terezin, including so called heirless property.[22]

On 25 April 2018, a protest led by the far-right National Movement's president Robert Winnicki was held in front of the US embassy in Warsaw, Winnicki saying that "The Jews will not get a penny from us".[27] A Polish-American group, including Richard Widerynski who is the former president of the Polish American Congress of Southern California lobbied against law, saying on their website that demands for restitution are "illegitimate extortion attempts".[28] On 11 May 2019, thousands of far-right Polish nationalists[29][30][31][32] marched to the United States Embassy in Warsaw protesting the JUST act. Protesters said that "Americans only think about Jewish and not Polish interests", that "this is Poland, not Polin" (the Hebrew name for Poland), and some wore shirts reading "death to the enemies of the fatherland" and "I will not apologize for Jedwabne".[29] Many of the protesters stated that as Poland was one of the most devastated countries in the aftermath of World War II "it is not fair to ask Poland to compensate Jewish victims when Poland has never received adequate compensation from Germany." Some protesters had signs on what they claim are "U.S. double standards", suggesting that U.S. should return land stolen from the Native Americans. According to sociologist Rafal Pankowski, this was "probably the biggest openly anti-Jewish street demonstration in Europe in recent years."[32][31][30]

On 31 March 2019 hundreds of protesters, described by media as either Polish Nationalists[33][34][35] or Polish-Americans,[36] protested in Foley Square in New York, as well as in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, and elsewhere in the USA against the restitution bills. Organizers of the protests included Polish-American organizations such as the Committee to Protect the Katyn Monument, the Polish American Strategic Initiative, Związek Żołnierzy Narodowych Sił Zbrojnych, the Polish Heritage Council of North America and the Polish American Congress of Southern California.[37] The Polish American Congress, the biggest Polish-American organization, did not take part in the protests, stating that "it does not require a soothsayer to predict that the mass media will write: 'On March 31, 2019, Polish Americans took to the streets to deny elderly Holocaust survivors compensation for their property.'"[38] Some of the protesters carried antisemitic signs such as referencing the "Holocaust Industry" or the Jewish greed stereotype, and some engaged in Holocaust denial rhetoric.[33][34][39][37] Simon Wiesenthal Center called on the Polish government to condemn the rally.[40] According to historian Jonathan Brent, the protests "were not routine political gatherings but demonstrations aimed at rewriting the history of the Holocaust that featured open displays of anti-Semitism in major American cities".[41] According to historian Matthew Lenoe, "the event was the latest attempt to erase complex or negative aspects of Polish history" in a similar fashion to the 2018 Polish Holocaust law, and raises "disturbing questions about a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe".[42]