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Why no reprivatisation in Poland? Holocaust-era property ownership. [119]
As far as I can recall reading, each województwo/Wojewodschaft in pre-War Poland had its own particular restrictions regarding Jewish "rights", specific to that region! Similar to many European countries, Jews had been invited in solely at the behest of individual nobles, only to be summarily thrown out (again) at the whim of those same nobles.
This left Jews between a rock and a hard place, so to speak! Those who converted to Catholicism and joined the Church, would thus be granted Polish citizenship, making them one step closer to being bona fide property owners:-) This seldom occurred, and so, the matter became compounded, sometimes long, long after the Second World War, when, as late as the new Millenium, former Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors demanded redress for "stolen" properties in Poland. The government though, has been often somewhat recalcitrant to even acknowledge such claims as valid.
The experience with (re-)privatization vs. re-patriation vis-à-vis the "return" of purloined goods/property wrested from Jewish hands before 1945 in Germany, for instance, was that Jews had long since become citizens until roughly 1938 and the advent of the Nuremberg Laws, thereby robbing all German Jews of any citizenship rights whatsoever!
After the War, Jews in Poland continued to be the victims of isolated pogroms, e.g. Kielce and Jedwabne among them. This was not the case in Germany, Werwolf-bands roaming the occupied, impoverished German countryside notwithstanding. Acts of anti-Jewish violence were few and far between.
Property belonging to Polish gentiles after the War and taken by Russia or Germany was returned, so long as restitution was considered appropriate.
Jews continue to try and wrest funds owed them as part of their "Wiedergutmachung" or restitution claims from the the German and Austrian governments, yet to little avail.
