| A reminder that no matter who the oppressor is, the Jews generally catch it in the teeth. |
WARSAW - Poland said Tuesday it would return citizenship to Jews forced out by the former communist regime in an anti-Semitic purge 50 years ago. ‘These matters (confirming citizenship) will be dealt with quickly, very quickly,’ Interior Minister Grzegorz Schetyna told reporters.
| I'm neither Polish nor a Jew, so it's probably none of my business, but if it was me, I'd say, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' |
Between 15,000 and 20,000 Polish Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors or the children of survivors, lost their jobs and were forced out of Poland during an anti-Semitic campaign launched by the communist party in March 1968. The victims of the purge, many of whom emigrated to Israel or the United States, were stripped of their Polish citizenship and their properties were expropriated by the state. Their Polish passports were also confiscated and replaced with a ‘travel document’ that did not allow them to return.
Last week Jewish organisations and Polish intellectuals petitioned President Lech Kaczynski to automatically return citizenship. ‘Among communist crimes, the infamy of March 1968 remains an event which weighs particularly on the Polish conscience,’ read the petition signed among others by award-winning film directors Andrzej Wajda and Agnieszka Holland as well as Nobel-prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska. ‘Anyone who lost their citizenship due to the 1968 anti-Semitic campaign must regain it.’
The petition was launched on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the March 8, 1968 pro-freedom student protests which the communist regime used as an excuse to begin its purge.
During a 2006 visit to Israel, Kaczynski vowed Polish citizenship would be returned to victims of the purges. But with no blanket legislation covering the issue, exiled Jews are left having to jump numerous bureaucratic hurdles. A majority of the exiles have refused to take this route, deeming it an additional humiliation. |