Poland to demand WWII reparations from Germany

Poland’s top politician says that the government will seek the equivalent of USD 1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for the Nazis’ World War II invasion and occupation of his country.
Main ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Thursday it is Poland’s “obligation” to seek reparations.
The leader of the Law and Justice party was speaking at the release of a long-awaited report on the cost to the country of years of Nazi German occupation as it marks 83 years since the start of World War II.
He says, “We not only prepared the report but we have also taken the decision as to the further steps”.
Poland’s right-wing government argues that the country which was the war’s first victim has not been fully compensated neighbouring Germany, which is now one of its major partners within the European Union.
The war was “one of the most terrible tragedies in our hory”, President Andrzej Duda said during early morning observances at the Westerplatte peninsula near Gdansk, one of the first places to be attacked in the Nazi invasion.
“Not only because it took our freedom, not only because it took our state from us, but also because this war meant millions of victims among Poland’s citizens and irreparable losses to our homeland and our nation,” Duda said.
In Germany, the government’s official for German-Polish cooperation, Dietmar Nietan, said in a statement that on September 1 “remains a day of guilt and shame for Germany that reminds us time and again not to forget the crimes carried out Germany” that are the “darkest chapter in our hory” and still affect bilateral relations.
Reconciliation offered people in Poland is “the basis on which we can look toward the future together in a united Europe”, Nietan said.
Poland’s government rejects a 1953 declaration the country’s then-commun leaders, under pressure from the Soviet Union, agreeing not to make any further claims on Germany.
Germany argues compensation was paid to East Bloc nations in the years after the war while territories that Poland lost in the East as borders were redrawn, were compensated with some of Germany’s pre-war lands. Berlin calls the matter closed.
An opposition lawmaker, Grzegorz Schetyna, says the report is just a “game in the internal politics” and inss Poland needs to build good relations with Berlin.Some 6 million of Poland’s citizens, including 3 million Jews, were killed in the war and its industry, infrastructure and culture suffered huge losses.