Restitution Interrupted: Controversy Over the Polish Law on Nazi-Looted Property

July 16, 2025

Chamber of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Barabasz, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

By Jagna Schmude

During World War II, more than 600,000 artworks were looted from Jewish families.^{To this day, over 100,000 remain in public and private collections and have not been returned to their rightful owners.^{Since the late 1990s, international frameworks have pushed for global efforts to return looted art. However, the introduction of statutes of limitations by national legislatures poses a serious threat to these efforts. In 2021, Poland introduced such a law. Given the country’s history and looting that took place on the territory of present-day Poland, this statute of limitations represents a massive step backwards in the global art restitution movement.}}

Table of Contents

A Brief History of the Restitution Problem

After the War, the Polish Jewish community had become almost extinct. Approximately 90% of Polish Jews, more than 3 million people, were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust and their properties, real and personal, were confiscated. Of those who survived, another 90% left Poland.^{The persecution combined with the fact that the descendants of Polish Jews no longer live in Poland, created significant barriers to make art restitution claims. It is logical that Poland, once a home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, would face a significantly larger amount of claims to Nazi-looted art than others. Yet Polish law currently does not reflect the level of protection needed to ensure effective restitution.}

Poland has never made it easy for Polish Jews to file restitution claims, especially when it comes to land. After the War, the Communist government that came to power nationalized all land in Warsaw through the Bierut Decree.^{However, even after the fall of Communism in 1989, Polish Jews and their descendants have continued to fight for restitution of property – both land and art. To this day no Polish government since the democratization has passed a land restitution law, making it an outlier among the European Union member states.^{In comparison, Latvia in 1992 introduced the Law on Restitution of Property to Religious Organizations^{and in 1997 Lithuania similarly introduced the Law on the Restoration of the Rights of Ownership of Citizens to the Existing Real Property^{which allowed heirs of Lithuanian Jews to recover seized property.}}}}

The restitution debate does not happen in a social or legal vacuum. Since 2015, Poland has undergone a shift from a liberal democracy toward populist autocracy following the election of the populist right wing Law and Justice (PiS) party. The status of Poland has declined from “consolidated democracy” to a “semi-consolidated democracy,”^{marked by a trend of removing checks and balances on the executive branch.^{In 2024 the centrist opposition party, Civic Platform, took power and formed a government headed by former Prime Minister and President of the European Council, Donald Tusk.^{As of 2025, it is still difficult to determine the effects that changes in democracy have had on restitution efforts, but it should be noted that both PiS and the Civic Platform governments avoid the restitution issue.^{In June of this year, Karol Nawrocki, a prominent nationalist historian, backed by the PiS party, won the Polish presidential election.^{Given that the previous president was also backed by the nationalist party and was responsible for approving the new statute of limitations, the future does not look promising for Nazi-era looted art restitution.}}}}}

The Amendment to the Code of Administrative Proceedings

In 2021, President Andrzej Duda signed an amendment to the Polish Code of Administrative Proceedings.^{The new law reduces the statute of limitations for all challenges to allegedly stolen property (including art) and allows claims to be brought only up to 30 years after the theft. This law mirrors those of other EU countries; however, several of them have passed amendments to exempt Nazi-era looting from the main framework. For example, France in 2023 passed a law which allows institutions to return items of property stolen between 1933 and 1945 to the heirs without the need for individual laws to be created for each case.^{All done in hope to streamline the restitution of Nazi-looted art. The new Polish law entered into force on August 15, 2021. As emphasised by Professor Wojciech Chróścielewski, the Head of the Department of Polish Administrative Procedure at the University of Łódź, the amendment could invalidate decisions that are already in progress.^{To the best of the knowledge of this author, no concrete examples and applications of the law have been made public.}}}

The Polish government’s official justification is to bolster legal certainty in the property market. In the official statement, Duda claimed that with his signature approving the law the “era of legal chaos ends” which had brought “uncertainty for millions of Poles, and a lack of respect for the most fundamental rights of citizens of our country.”^{He denied accusations of antisemitism by insisting that he was “opposed to associating this act with the Holocaust” and reaffirms Poland’s role as the guardian of memory of the victims of Nazi crimes against Jews.}

“A Slap in the Face”: International Response

The law has sparked widespread controversy on the international stage. Israel openly opposed the amendment. Former Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, condemned the law as “shameful” with the former Foreign Minister Yair Lapid calling the law “antisemitic and immoral”.^{World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder strongly condemned the law by describing it as a “slap in the face to what remains of Polish Jewry and survivors of Nazi brutality,”^{and warned that it set a very bad precedent for international efforts to help heirs of Holocaust victims seek justice.}}

In 1998, over 40 countries including Poland endorsed the Washington Principles^{which aimed to speed up the global restitution efforts for Nazi-looted art. The biggest drawback is that the principles are non-binding. As a result, many heirs have not received the justice they seek, and many lawsuits continue to drag on. Following the enactment of the new Polish amendment, Stuart Eizenstat, an adviser to the U.S. State Department, emphasized that Poland lags behind global efforts to return looted art and uphold the Principles..^{When the law came into effect, art lawyer Frank Lord told Artnet News that “it is clear that Poland is trying to block claims and that its actions are in violation of the principles that were espoused at the Washington Conference.”^{Łukasz Bernatowicz, a Polish lawyer representing claimants in restitution cases, called the law “scandalous” as it could lead to thousands of cases being dismissed.^{The victims already face obstacles when restoring looted art such as lack of documentation, high evidentiary burdens and significant financial and legal costs. Since, 2021 the Polish courts are not even hearing these claims. In an interview with The Art Newspaper, Nicholas O’Donnell, an attorney at the international law firm Sullivan & Worcester, summarized these comments by stating that the law “will do exactly as it is intended: to make what is already very hard nearly impossible.”}}}}

Statutes of limitations around the world

In the past, legal limitations on Nazi-looted art claims have been revoked after understanding their detrimental effects on justice. The UK Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act 2009^{originally included a sunset clause (section 4 (7) ), making the Act expire in 10 years since its adoption. When introducing the Bill repealing the clause, Theresa Villiers, a Conservative Member of the UK Parliament, highlighted that “institutions have done extensive work to check the origins and history of everything in their collections, but the task can probably never be fully and finally completed”.^{There may never be access to all the information necessary to fully restitute all art-related claims. They have no natural end point as evidence is almost impossible to obtain and may never be. In contrast with the Polish law, the debate in the House of Lords reflects a broader consensus in the UK that imposing strict timelines on justice is unjust and arbitrary.}}

Recently, the United States appears to be following the lead of the UK legislature. On May 22, 2025, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), among others, introduced the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025^{, which seeks to amend the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2016.^{The key problem of the original Act was its expiration date: heirs and families of victims could no longer bring claims under the Act past 31, December 2026. The 2025 HEAR Act Reform eliminates that sunset clause. According to Senator Cornyn, the bill aims to “ensure that claims are considered on their merits and not dismissed due to time-based technical defenses or other non-merits discretionary defenses.”^{In the Art Law Report, O’Donnell highlighted that “the bill is an important step in Holocaust-era art claims and should be passed.”^{The proposed law stands in stark contrast to the Polish law, and aims to reinforce the United States’ ongoing commitments under 1998 Washington Principles and 2009 Terezin Declaration to facilitate global efforts for restitution of Nazi-looted art.}}}}

Conclusion

In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Elie Wiesel stated that “remembering is a necessary and noble act.”^{Israel’s former Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lior Hayat, emphasized that the new Polish law “is absolutely not about money, it’s about memory and responsibility.”^{Rather than limiting restitution of Nazi-looted art, the sentiment in response to Poland’s statute of limitations is that greater efforts should be made to focus on making these claim processes easier and more accessible. It is the only way to help redress the wrongs of the past.}}

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Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not meant to provide legal advice. Readers should not construe or rely on any comment or statement in this article as legal advice. For legal advice, readers should seek a consultation with an attorney.