Omar Ryan | Poland seeks reparations from Germany

Early in September, news broke that Poland would be seeking reparations from Germany in the amount of US$1.3 trillion for the crimes and unimaginable destruction committed against Poland during the Second World War from 1939-1945. This announcement was made on the 83rd anniversary of the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland - September 1,1939 - and this event would mark the official start date of the Second World War.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the governing Law and Justice Party, announced the intentions of the Polish government to pursue reparatory justice at a ceremony in Warsaw. Kaczynski’s announcement comes after the completion of a reported, robust investigative report that details the atrocities, crimes, and costs to Poland as the basis of reparations from the Federal Republic of Germany. The report, compiled by a team of historians, economists, and legal experts, was five years in the making.

News agencies globally outlined the atrocities committed in Poland by the Nazis. However, there was also considerable scrutiny on the legality of the Polish claim for reparations.

NAZI ATROCITIES AGAINST POLAND

For seven gruesome years, at least six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, met their demise courtesy of the German Nazis. These atrocities are a well-documented portion of the campaign to eradicate Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe and achieve racial purity. Furthermore, a quote from Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler shows the brutal racist regime’s intent to decimate the entire Polish population, “All Polish specialists will be exploited in our military-industrial complex. Later, all Poles will disappear from this world. It is imperative that the great German nation consider the elimination of all Polish people as its chief task.” The accounts of Hitler’s orders for the indiscriminate killing of all men, women, and children add credence to the demands for reparatory justice.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, the country was wholly restructured and not to the benefit of the Poles. Nazi armies laid waste on Polish cities, causing massive damage to infrastructure and physical property. During the occupation, dozens of concentration camps were erected for the systematic slaughter of Jewish peoples, ethnic minorities, and the mentally disabled. Famous among them was Auschwitz. Outside of the concentration camps, the Nazis killed 200,000 Polish nationals during and after the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and kidnapped and raped Polish women and sent them to sex slave camps in Germany. In addition, the German Air Force bombed cities and created an unimaginable trail of blood, tears, and destruction.

Indeed, such actions must warrant reparations. Although they cannot compensate for the indescribable damage to the Polish state and people, it shows a commitment to justice and restitution for wrongdoings.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST POLISH REPARATION

Germany, in its defence, posits that compensation was paid to the Eastern Bloc nation-states in the subsequent years after the war.

Furthermore, under the influence of the USSR in 1953, Poland’s communist-aligned leaders relinquished all claims to reparations. The USSR desired to liberate East Germany, a then member state, from its war-crime responsibilities.

However, current leaders have rejected this agreement, arguing that Poland was not in a fair position to negotiate claims due to undue influence from the USSR.

THE TURNING POINT?

This present case of Poland seeking reparations from Germany in 2022 is a stark reminder to the nations, reparation movements, and people of the English-speaking Caribbean who are intent on seeking reparations from Britain that the claim for reparations is real, just, and warranted.

Almost 100 years have passed since World War II, and many of the people who suffered in Nazi concentration death camps and victims of destruction and damage caused by the Nazis in Poland have died. However, many living Poles are direct descendants of the millions of Polish victims of occupation and war.

Lord Anthony Gifford states: “There is no legal barrier to prevent those who suffer the consequences of crimes against humanity from claiming reparations even though the crimes were committed against their ancestors.”

Lord Gifford campaigns with this response to those who still think that the chattel enslavement of Africans and genocidal acts committed against the indigenous Americans is far long gone and that a successful claim for reparations is futile. In the face of Polish demand for reparatory justice, Lord Gifford’s argument stands: Crimes against humanity demand reparations.

Representatives of the British Monarchy and Government have stated that “slavery was abhorrent”, a sentiment expressed by Prince William, Prince of Wales (formerly Duke of Cambridge, March 2022) and Former Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron (2015). However, these opinions become offensive, with empty phrases like “should have never happened” or that descendants should “move on”. In a world where people are continuously growing more conscious and aware of their rights, justice, restitution, and taking measures in defence of same, the British Monarchy and Government have chosen to hold firm to their stance of inaction.

Based on international law, laid down by the Charter of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, delineates crimes against humanity as“murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population …whether or not in violation of the domestic law where perpetrated”.

Chattel enslavement of African people in the Caribbean from the 16th to early 19th centuries, for all intents and purposes, was genocidal, and just like the Nazi war crimes committed during the Second World War, is a crime against humanity. Moreover, the millions of people uprooted from Africa, tortured and butchered throughout the Middle Passage, enslaved on plantations, and inhumanely treated for years did destroy nations, ethnic groups, communities, families, and cultures. The consequences of which current descendants of Africans deal with daily.

We could not ask for a more analogous case than the present one of Poland seeking reparations from Germany to be confident in the claim for reparations against Britain for the crime of chattel enslavement and native genocide of Africans and indigenous Amerindian peoples, respectively.

As Kaczynski stated to the people of Poland, “It will be long and not an easy path but one day will bring success.”

The Caribbean Reparations Movement stands firm – A Luta continua.

Reparation Conversations is a collaborative initiative between The Gleaner and the Centre for Reparation Research (CRR), The University of the West Indies. Omar Ryan is the administrative assistant at the CRR. Send feedback to reparation.research@uwimona.edu.jm.