Land claim in Poland.

Hi!

Just a question with regards to land claims within Poland. I have found much information from 92-2007, but nothing recent.

My Opa's family was evicted from WALDERSEE, Kreis JOHANNISBURG. About 250 acres.

I am the remaining "heir" to this land and have all the paperwork.
Is it worth pursuing? Has this ever been successful?

You will have to ask yourself when this all happened. If it happened after the 2nd world war you may not stand a chance on getting the property back. Between then and 1990 the communists were in control and the property may have been split up into smaller units and disposed of accordingly. So, if you were to try and claim the property as inheritance, you will not only be fighting a losing battle because you will be fighting the current owners. which could be upwards to 5 or more depending on how the property was subdivided.

So, do some research as to what happened to this property from the time of the eviction and now. If you can obtain legalized copies of any paperwork after the eviction it may or may not help to determine course of action if this property is still in one piece of the size you mention. But do not get your hopes up that you will get the property back. You may be stirring up a lot of bad feelings with the current people that live in the area. Chances are, if you want to pursue the matter, all you could hope for is limited compensation if at all.

Who they were evicted by and on what legal basis often plays a very big part. As gjene says, this can be complicated. It's also rarely quick. Might be worth finding a lawyer to register the claim, for the sake of getting the claim in case the law should change.

Whereabouts is that in PL by the way?

From memory it's somewhere near Pisz, i.e. that part of Poland which is so un-Polish that lots of the place names had to be changed from the previous names Polish people used, because those names were too obviously German, e.g. Pisz used to be Jansbork.


'Depends' as in 'depends on whether it will be actually impossible or practically impossible'?

You should rather google this question on German websites, as there must have been many Germans in similar to you situation.

I know some people who managed it, some who haven't but put their claim in to be on the safe side should it become easier and others who admit there's no chance.

I really appreciate the responses. Right now, I'm gathering my thoughts and just enquiring... I have never delved this deep into my family's histories before but my elderly family has only just decided to tell me!

They were evicted and the mother, a Polish woman, died on the way. The husband survived and died in Germany a few years later.

Gjene, thankyou, I absolutely will. A lot of the paperwork is in German, Gothic, or Polish and I will need to have it translated. I don't particularly want to evict anyone. I know a lot of it was forest area with some lakes, and I was half hoping it's state land now as opposed to someone's livelihood.

Harry, my research also concluded that's exactly where it was located.

Monitor, I have attempted to but only found a few threads with regards to land claims for Jewish people in Germany... I didn't know how applicable that was to my situation. I should look harder I suspect!

If they were considered Germans when expelled from Poland, it will be very very difficult. Poland has more or less made it clear that they consider the matter to be settled, with the land given in return for the destruction of the Polish state in 1939. I cannot imagine the country returning any property willingly to an ethnic German, especially if it was part of the mass expulsions at the time.

While trying to look into my grandmother's 1st husband's family, an aunt of mine, said she did not want me to continue with my research. It was something that she wanted to more or less forget and put behind her. Not only that, she hinted at owning some property there. But she did not tell me as to how she came to own it. I do not wish her to know that she gave me a clue to look into. I just hope that if she inherited this property from her father, then he may have left a will to indicate who else inherited something of the estate. The only thing is, I don't know if this property is registered in her name. How would I ask about this in Polish? I know where she was born and where her father was born, raised, died, and got buried so I suspect that this property is in that same general area. Hopefully her father left a will and that will give me a clue about others in the family.