Why does Poland not have a repatriation office?

Can someone please explain why Poland does not have a repatriation office? Poland is admitting refugees while its citizens who were exiled during the communist era get no assistance. Documents in the archives, like passport records, are not indexed and not accessible to citizens living abroad for legal purposes or even when they visit. Yet, Polish administrators will demand production of documents that the Polish government holds, but will not make public. (I do not mean records that were destroyed in the war.) Why is this permitted.

With what?

Uh, repatriation...being recognized as a citizen with all of the right documents, not a tourist.

More than one meaning of that word, and it's possible to do in your home country, wherever that is.

If you are eligible for this.

As a tourist, you should still be able to visit.

So, did you do this?

In my experience it is only possible in theory. In practice, helpful documents are not available from the archive, and then the administrator demands proof of things that never happened, e.g., prove your immigrant ancestor didn't hold public office in any foreign country. It is an absurd experience even with a good Polish lawyer. It takes years, and requires much expense along with much hassle, with no end in sight.

Yes but we all know EXACTLT where Curious Jerzy is going with this.
And for one, I will be very interested in the feedback by any others besides jealous ex-pats living in Poland that come from non Polish ancestry that hate American - Pole's.

Excellent thread Curious Jerzy !
Carry on and don't let anyone take you off- topic to confuse the issue.

Yet thousands of people do this without difficulty. In addition, many people who have held public office in another country have no problems.

The usual difficulty is when citizenship has been either renounced or stripped.

This may be true where you are from but it is far from the truth from where I am from.
Seems it should be the Polish governments duty to streamline anyone whose Polish ancestors fled for their lives from Poland because of war for their return to their homeland.

Seems almost the opposite though as records are very costly and time consuming to recover without the help of the Polish government.
Priority should be given to these people before the Muslim immigrants or even British immigrants.
Most of these people would know basic Polish traditions like the Catholic religion, foods and work ethics.

No evidence that the OP wishes to immigrate to Poland, or that it's in any sense a return. If he's no paperwork and can't get any from the normal archives it looks like he's ineligible, perhaps for reasons he doesn't mention.

Heavens Betsy jon,
You have gone way off the threads topic for the sake of an irrelevant debate.
The title of the thread is: Why does Poland not have a repatriation office?
I find that a damn good question myself which as of yet no one can/has answered.

It does. Each region has one. Do you want the address of the Warsaw one?

Oh, do you mean people playing games with the meaning of "repatriation'? The Polish government uses it euphemistically for ethnic Poles in the East whose ancestors may have never been citizens of the Second Polish Republic, and who lost citizenship by the border change. Something is lost in the English translation because nothing is done for those who are descended from actual Polish citizens, who claim citizenship by descent. Those from the East are desired as a cheap source of labour.


No, they don't do that at all. The Polish government does nothing to investigate claims or assist those seeking recognition of their citizenship, like most other countries. It is an administrative adversarial process where the Polish government holds the documents, and rather than investigating its own records, demands the petitioner prove its claim without them, and then will demand proof of negatives, i.e., prove that your Polish ancestor didn't do something that would have resulted in a loss of citizenship under the 1920 Polish citizenship law. How can it be proved that a man didn't join the French Foreign Legion under an assumed name? So the grandchild of a person who could have entered Poland with a Polish passport in 1939 gets grilled to prove that Dziadek didn't somehow lose his citizenship by joining a foreign military, or hold public office abroad. The present ruling elite continues the communist's distrust of Poles living in the West.

The Polish government holds passport records in the national archives that have not been indexed, and in one case I know of access was twice denied by the archives, claiming they needed time to "paginate" the records before they could be viewed. By the second time, it became clear that the documents were being withheld. They would likely disproportionately benefit Jews claiming citizenship. Getting these documents without a lawyer proved to be impossible for a friend's claim. Passport records are more valuable for recognition as a citizen by descent, since they prove citizenship, not merely birth location. There is no reason for those records to be closed to the descendants of the bearers. It should be a scandal.


I didn't think so. The Internet is full of self declared experts who have no experience with their self-declared fields of expertise. The thread is about the conduct and policies of the Polish government towards its foreign born citizens. It's a human rights issue.

Clarification: The records would likely benefit Jews disproportionately to their numbers in the present Polish population.

?? If Jews were or are Polish citizens, which we'll accept as factual evidence, how then are the Jews being benefited "disproportionately to their numbers..."? How many Jews, i.e. anyone who professes the Jewish faith or ethnicity, in fact live in Poland? The majority nowadays live in the capital, as far as I've read. Krakow has some Jewish-style restaurants, a cemetery and formerly Jewish living quarters, plus, Israeli high schoolers are required to take an excursion there at least once in their life. Other than that, where pray are the Jews in Poland?

Since overwhelmingly the descendants of Poland's Jews are now living abroad, but without Polish passports, they are not normally found in Poland. That does not negate that most have claims to Polish citizenship.

And rightly so, I might add:-) If they were Polish-speaking citizens who happened to be of the Jewish rather than the Roman Catholic faith, were booted out of Poland or suffered so during the War that they were literally forced into exile, then why not oughtn't they be "repatriated", considering that their "patria" of origin is Poland, and not Israel, Canada, England, or the States?

Seems rather silly to deny them their birthright merely because some numbskulls out there in la-la-land can't accept Jewish people in Polish society.
Polish-speaking, assimilated Jews above all, have contributed richly to Polish science and literature (both in Poland and abroad), e.g. Julian Tuwim, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Kasimir Funk, Boleslaw Lesmian, opera singer Jan Keipura and of course, the great Jan Brzechwa, among others.

Are they not "Poles" too?

The Jews are part of Polish history. I don't claim that this issue is directed against the Jews. The games are directed against ALL Polish citizens who were living abroad before and immediately after WWII. The attitude of Polish administrators is hostile to those seeking repatriation. Since Jews were 10% of the population before the war, and almost nothing now, access to the passport records in the archives would help them pursue citizenship claims disproportionately to their present percentage of Poland's population-what I was expressing.

I see your point of view. Kind of agree that from where you as a native, average Pole are sitting, the "majority" Poles ought to be given first priority, the "minority" Poles aka Poles of Jewish extraction, should wait in line until it's THEIR turn, is that about it?

Guess so.

No, a Polish citizen is a Polish citizen regardless of religion, ethnicity, etc. By helping ethnic Poles from the East migrate West, while doing nothing for Polish citizens in the West repatriate, it is the Polish government that is discriminating against its own citizens. Considering Poland's history and the amount of records that were destroyed in the war, Poland should do something more than say, "The records got destroyed. You can't prove your citizenship claim. It sucks to be you." Something should be done for such people. At present, they can do nothing but petition the President of Poland for citizenship without the records.

That is to say, "equal status before the law regardless of religious origins". All right, I see now. You're saying furthermore that the Duda-Kaczynski-Szydlo regime is discriminating against certain Poles based on location instead of merit.

I can well imagine how imminently frustrating this must be.

Nothing 'euphemistic' about it. Those people are usually descended from people deported during the war to Kazakhstan etc and unable to return.


It means that if someone revoked their Polish citizenship, had it cancelled by the Polish government or had it revoked on their behalf by a parent or guardian, that is permanent. Anyone in that situation must apply through the normal channels. Many do.


Why would their descendents need any special help to gain citizenship? If they wish to reside in Poland or any other EU member state, the normal immigration laws should suffice.

To which "normal" immigration laws might you be referring in this case?

The system by which most people who immigrate to Poland or elsewhere in Europe become citizens.

Usually based on period of residence, visa or residence status, proof of tax paid and passing a state language exam.

Thanks. Just curious, that's all:-)

Immigration laws and citizenship laws are apples and oranges. They only intersect because under present law in Poland, an alien immigrant after a certain period of time can apply for citizenship. However, Polish citizens are free to emigrate elsewhere in the world, and as long as citizenship was not renounced, they retain their Polish citizenship and it passes from one generation to the next while living abroad. So when such an ex-pat Polish citizen repatriates, he/she has the same legal rights as other Poles. The problem is that recent Polish governments, (not simply the present regime), have been hostile to those descended from citizens of the Second Polish Republic who lived abroad.

Repatriation, (returning to Poland), or getting recognition of Polish citizenship from the government and the normal legal ID, passports, etc. is not the same as immigration. [In fact, repatriation is the opposite of immigration.] A Polish citizen has the right to own property in Poland, vote in elections, etc., and should not need to return to Poland, establish residency, attend drawn out hearings in Warsaw or elsewhere, to vindicate such rights if they choose to remain abroad. I wouldn't doubt that some Poles who had a citizenship rights in the U.K. came to Poland on British passports and then found applying for citizenship as immigrants easier than getting an adjudication on their citizenship rights. It doesn't change the law that Polish citizens born abroad are Polish citizens. If the Polish government can't find a record that citizenship of someone's father or grandfather was lost, renounced, etc., there should be no inquisition to demand proof of the negative from the next generation, which is what is happening. Poland is quite different from other European states in this regard.


Obviously not.

A curious relationship connected with the attempt a number of years back to repatriate one-time "Volga Germans" from Russia, who were born to parents both of German descent, yet living in Russia for several generations, knew only Russian and no German, yet petitioned for German citizenship.

Caused a major headache for the German court system, but was eventually resolved and the bulk of the more frivolous cases were merely thrown out, period, end of story:-)

Did any of the Volga Germans ever get convicted of mass murder, or terrorism? I'm curious.

Just to note, I checked the Karta Polaka requirements again, and there is no requirement of Polish ancestry. Anyone who wants to get one can take Polish classes for a while. Since Polish citizens can't apply for the KP, people who enter on that visa are immigrants, not repatriated Polish citizens. I couldn't be clearer.

Funny you should ask, Jerzy. In fact, the only "crime" which any of those applicants petitioning ever committed, was bilking the German gov't out of funds:-) There may well have been others of which I'm simply not aware.

Talking about Israel? What is this to you?


That is a very good question, there is something shady about it.

NB: The Volga Germans emigrated to Russia in the 18th century at the invitation of Catherine the Great, long before their was a German state. That is a bit different from documented Polish citizens with records in the archives who chose not to return to communism and the Soviet occupation.