---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 20:20:11 PDT
From: AFP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Newsgroups: clari.living.history, clari.world.europe.central, clari.living,
clari.world.europe
Subject: Polish holocaust survivors file suit against Poland for assets seized
NEW YORK, June 18 (AFP) - A group of Polish holocaust survivors
and their heirs filed a class action suit against Poland Friday in
an attempt to recover property and assets they charge were illegally
seized during World War II.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Brooklyn, seeks
to represent thousands of survivors and their relatives who lost
more than 100,000 parcels of property, now worth billions of
dollars, seized by the Nazis during the holocaust.
The lawsuit also attempts to stop the Polish government from
selling off the assets or pay the survivors and heirs compensation
for the property.
"We're not seeking money, we're seeking to expedite a fair
system for these properties to be returned," said Mel Urbach, one of
the plaintiffs' lawyers.
"Our clients have been unable to get their property back through
the Polish system and they've asked us to assist them."
According to Urbach, the properties were taken over by the
Polish government after World War II, under the theory that the
assets were abandoned and could be legally confiscated.
But the suit charges that holocaust survivors were forced to
give up any attempt to retrieve or manage the properties.
It also charges that since the war, the Polish government has
commercially managed the property, developing it, renting and
selling the assets that does not belong to it.
Because the government has acted in a "private capacity," Urbach
claims it is no longer covered by foreign sovereign immunity.
Lawyers in the suit estimate the class of plaintiffs could
eventually be as large as between 50,000-60,000 survivors and
heirs.
Urbach added that Poland maintains ledger books of property
owners but has barred plaintiffs access to them in order to prove
ownership claims.
Ed Klein, another lawyer in the case, said six of the 11 named
plaintiffs are from New York City and Long Island, but include
others such as Peter Koppenheim, a British citizen who lives in
Manchester, England.
The case has been assigned to US District Court Judge Edward
Korman, who last summer negotiated a 125-billion-dollar settlement
between holocaust survivors and Swiss banks over assets seized by
Nazis and never returned.
