The US State Department criticized Poland and a number of Central and Eastern European states for failing to fulfill obligations to return or reimburse property confiscated during World War II and the Holocaust. The department sent the corresponding report to Congress on Wednesday, July 29, reports Associated Press.
The document analyzes the actions taken by countries on this issue. According to the report, such property also includes property “subsequently nationalized in the communist era.” A total of 46 states that participated in the signing of the final document of the International Conference on the Property of the Victims of the Holocaust in Prague in 2009, called the “Terezin Declaration”, are being considered.
The largest volume of criticism is directed at Poland, the authorities of which, out of 5,500 requests for the return of property, according to the State Department, rejected half. In addition, the country, as stated in the document, has not yet formed a broad legislative framework for dealing with such cases.
The American foreign policy department is dissatisfied with the policy on this issue of the authorities of Ukraine, Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The State Department also has claims against Russia.
“Russia has done little to conduct lineage studies, return to owners or pay compensation for art objects that were returned at the end of World War II after they were confiscated by the Nazis,” the report says.
The State Department was supposed to send its report to Congress under American law, which was passed by legislators in 2017 and signed by President Donald Trump in May 2018.
The “Terezin Declaration” was adopted on the territory of the former concentration camp in the city of Terezin. According to it, the victims of the Holocaust were planned to return movable and immovable property, insurance assets, cultural values ​​and art objects. At the same time, it is not binding, the declaration is an international act on which the governments of a number of countries are guided.