Foreign Minister Yair Lapid released a video on Motzei Shabbos slamming Poland after its president signed a law on Saturday restricting the rights of former Polish property owners, including Holocaust survivors and their descendants, to regain property seized by the country’s communist regime.

An angry-sounding Lapid, who is is the son of a Holocaust survivor, said: “Poland approved today, not for the first time, an anti-Semitic and unethical law. I instructed the charge d’affaires of the embassy in Warsaw to immediately return to Israel for consultations for an indefinite period of time.”

“The new ambassador to Poland, who was due to leave for Warsaw soon, will not leave to Poland at this stage. The Foreign Ministry will recommend today to the Polish Ambassador to Israel to continue his vacation in his country. It’s worthwhile for him to use the time available to him in order to explain to the Poles what the significance of the Holocaust is to Israeli citizens and how much we will not tolerate contempt of the memory of those who perished and the memory of the Holocaust.”

“It won’t stop here. We’re holding talks with the US on ways to respond. Poland has turned into an anti-democratic, non-liberal country that doesn’t respect the greatest tragedy in human history. It is alway forbidden to be silent. Israel and the Jewish people will certainly not remain silent.”

פולין אישרה היום, לא בפעם הראשונה, חוק אנטישמי ולא מוסרי. הוריתי הערב לממונה על השגרירות בוורשה לחזור מיד לישראל להתייעצויות ללא הגבלת זמן.

השגריר החדש לפולין, שאמור היה לצאת בקרוב לוורשה, לא ייצא לפולין בשלב זה. pic.twitter.com/cHCtK38KJb

— יאיר לפיד – Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) August 14, 2021

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also slammed the bill, calling it “a shameful decision and disgraceful contempt for the memory of the Holocaust.” Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who is also the son of Holocaust survivors, called for Israel’s international partners to join together in condemning the Polish move.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had called on President Andrzej Duda on Thursday to veto the law, arguing that it would severely restrict the “process for Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as other Jewish and non-Jewish property owners, to obtain restitution for property wrongfully confiscated during Poland’s communist era.”

Duda said in a statement that he analyzed the matter carefully and decided to sign the law to end legal uncertainty and fraud linked to properties whose ownership remains in doubt decades after World War II.

Duda said he strongly objected to anyone suggesting that the law was directed specifically against Jews who survived the Holocaust, which was carried out by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland and elsewhere.

“I unequivocally reject this rhetoric and say it with all my strength,” Duda said. “Linking this act with the Holocaust raises my firm objection.”

Before World War II, Poland was home to Europe’s largest Jewish community of nearly 3.5 million people. Most were killed in the Holocaust under Germany’s occupation and their properties confiscated. Poland’s post-war communist authorities seized those properties, along with the property of many non-Jewish owners in Warsaw and other cities.

When communism fell in 1989, it opened up the possibility for former owners to try to regain their lost properties. Some cases have made their way through the courts, but Poland has never passed a comprehensive law that would regulate restituting or compensating seized properties.

Some of those cases have been beset by fraud. Criminal groups have claimed to be rightful owners, obtaining valuable properties, and in some cases evicting tenants.

“I am convinced that with my signature the era of legal chaos ends — the era of re-privatization mafias, the uncertainty of millions of Poles and the lack of respect for the basic rights of citizens of our country. I believe in a state that protects its citizens against injustice,” Duda said.

The legislation was widely supported across the political spectrum in Poland.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem & AP)