The Polish government wants to increase pressure on Germany to pay reparations for damages caused during World War II, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk said Tuesday.
«The issue of reparations is of absolute importance for Poland. It is not just a political issue, it is about Poland’s dignity,» Mularczyk said in an interview with the German news agency DPA at the beginning of his official visit to Berlin.
«Germany has a choice: either it sits down at the negotiating table with Poland, or we will take the complaint to all international forums such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Union,» the Polish foreign minister said.
As chairman of Poland’s parliamentary reparations commission, Mularczyk commissioned a report on the war damages inflicted on Poland by Nazi Germany during World War II. The amount of damage was estimated at 1.37 billion euros.
«This issue cannot be postponed by the German government until the next elections,» he stressed. «There has to be dialogue on this issue, otherwise it would be very bad for our neighborhood,» he has added.
The Polish deputy minister will hold meetings with German officials in Berlin this Tuesday and Wednesday, including the head of European Affairs at the German Foreign Ministry, Anna Luhrmann.
For its part, the German government opposes the demand for reparations, pointing to the 1990 Two Plus Four Treaty – in which Poland did not participate – on the foreign policy consequences of German unification, which Berlin believes settled the issue.
Mularczyk therefore stressed that «nothing should be swept under the carpet between Germany and Poland,» while accusing Germany of pursuing a policy of «concealment, blocking and forgetting» since the 1950s.
«I personally know elderly people who were severely injured in the war and have been physically disabled ever since. They spent their lives seeking justice and did not find it. The Germans don’t see these people and act as if they don’t exist,» he has reviewed.
«At the same time, old-age pensions are paid to former soldiers of the Wehrmacht (Nazi Armed Forces) and members of the SS. This policy of Germany has to be shown to the world,» he said, before describing the situation as a «great historical injustice».
