The World Jewish Restitution Organization has launched a database aimed at helping thousands of Holocaust survivors or their heirs regain property lost in Warsaw due to World War II and communism, according to the Associated Press. Under a new Polish law, people will have just six months to file claims for more than 2,600 properties in the capital after those properties are listed publicly in a newspaper, something expected to happen soon.
Claimants who fail to come forward by the deadline will forever relinquish their rights to any restitution, with the city to assume permanent ownership of unclaimed properties. The municipality has compiled a list of 2,613 street addresses that will be open to be claimed, but does not give the names of the original owners. The new database matches the street addresses with the names found in historical records.
Gideon Taylor, WJRO'S chair of operations, says it's not clear how many of those properties were Jewish, but he believes a significant number must be because Warsaw was 30 percent Jewish before the war and Jews were well-represented in the professional and property-owning classes.