Poland to outlaw phrase ‘Polish death camps’
WARSAW (WJC) — Poland is planning to adopt a law to punish people who use the phrase “Polish death camps” in relation to Nazi concentration camps in German-occupied Poland during World War II.
Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro declared on a radio channel that his bill would “meet the expectations of Poles, who are accused around the world, in Europe, even in Germany, that they are the perpetrators of the Holocaust; that in Poland there are ‘Polish concentration camps’, ‘Polish gas chambers’.”
“Enough with the lies! Someone must be made responsible,” Ziobro added, explaining that at the beginning of this week the deputy justice minister would present the draft bill.
The use of the term “Polish concentration camp” by international media outlets has sparked numerous complaints from Poland in recent years, prompting some news agencies to change their style guidelines.
In 2007, following a Polish request, the World Heritage Committee attempted to clarify the matter by listing the Auschwitz camp as a ‘German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp’ (Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress)
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Serbia to compensate Jewish communities for heirless Jewish property
BELGRADE, Serbia (WJC) — Serbia’s legislature on Friday passed a law offering compensation for heirless Jewish property seized during and after the Holocaust.
The National Assembly adopted a bill under which annual payments of around $1 million are made for the next 25 years to the country’s Jewish communities for property that was looted from its Jewish owners during and after the Holocaust, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) informed.
“This is a step toward justice and the recognition of history,” Gideon Taylor, the WJRO’s chair of operations, said in a statement. He added: “We look to other countries to follow Serbia’s lead and return heirless Jewish property so that it can help Holocaust survivors in need, commemorate those who died and strengthen Jewish life in these communities where so much was destroyed.”
In 2009, 46 countries signed a document recognizing the principle of offering compensation for property without heirs, which in countries such as Poland is estimated in the billions. “But none have taken such action, until last week,” the WJRO’s acting director, Nachliel Dison, told JTA. He noted that Hungary did offer limited compensation for heirless property, but not through legislation. The Serbian law, he said, “hopefully will make it incumbent on other countries to follow Serbia’s lead.”
Serbia created a procedure for Holocaust restitution of heirs relatively late, in 2011.
During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by Nazi Germany and Serbian Jewry almost annihilated. Only 5,000 of the 34,000 Jews in Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia, survived the Holocaust. Already in August 1942, a Nazi report declared the capital Belgrade to be “judenrein” (empty of Jews). Today, an estimated 1,200 Jews live in the country, the great majority of whom reside in Belgrade, which has an especially active Jewish community. (Preceding provided by the World Jewish Congress.)