President Ronald S. Lauder of the World Jewish Congress has characterized as “reprehensible” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s reported statement that providing restitution to Polish Jews for property stolen from them during the Holocaust would be tantamount to “Hitler’s posthumous victory.”
Lauder noted, “Successive Polish governments have steadfastly refused to recognize the material losses of Polish Jewry and have essentially treated their homes and other property as the spoils of war--and individual Poles and Polish institutions have profiteered from these assets for more than seven decades. This unwillingness to acknowledge that the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs are entitled to a modicum of material justice is unfortunate enough, but Prime Minister Morawiecki’s contention--assuming that it was uttered as reported--that providing restitution to Jews for their stolen property would be ‘Hitler’s posthumous victory’ is alarming in the extreme." He concluded, "I hope that Prime Minister Morawiecki was misquoted and can provide an explanation. Otherwise, the sentiments underlying his words can only be characterized as reprehensible and must be thoroughly rejected."