Polish dispossessed call for return of property

Representatives of millions of Poles whose property was seized during and after World War II are calling on the government to compensate them.

They met on Monday for a national congress that lashed out at the Cabinet of Prime Minister Donald Tusk for recently abandoning a plan to partly compensate families — many of them Jewish — whose property was confiscated by the Nazis and the subsequent Communist regime.

The government argued it cannot afford even partial compensation.

Miroslaw Szypowski — the head of an organization of dispossessed property owners — said some 3 million owners and their inheritors are entitled to land, houses and business estimated to be worth around 100 billion zlotys ($35 billion).