New York, Boston, Hartford, Los Angeles: Protests to Repeal Fraudulent Act S.447

Poland, which lost over 20% of its prewar population, is falsely accused by some of complicity in the Holocaust. The protests will be held under the slogans: "Repeal Fraudulent Act S.447", "We Say NO to the Giveaway of Heirless Property", "Act S.447 is a Fraud" and "Act S.447 = Unconstitutional Precedent." We also protest the compromising lack of involvement of the Government of Poland and the Polish Parliament in this regard. Protests will take place in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Hartford, and Philadelphia.

On May 9, 2018, President Donald Trump signed S. 447 into law, currently regarded as Federal Law No. 115-171. This law has met with heavy opposition in the United States and the world as being in violation of the existing legal order. The law also sanctions undue claims against Poland by Jewish American groups such as the World Jewish Restitution Organization. The subject of these claims includes real estate and other assets left by Polish citizens of Jewish ancestry, murdered during World War II by Nazi Germany.

It should be emphasized that these claims have already been satisfied in the form of the international agreement between Germany and Israel, formerly known as The Luxembourg Agreement of 1952, in which Germany assumed full responsibility for the genocide and other crimes committed on the Jewish minority in Germany and in all countries occupied by Nazi Germany, including Poland. In addition, these claims were also met by indemnification agreements between Poland and the United States, Great Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, the Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Law 115-171 (Act S.447) refers to the indications of the Terezin Declaration of 2009. The declaration includes non-legal claims of various Jewish organizations against 46 countries whose citizens participated in this conference, including Poland. The aforementioned claims include assets left unpredictably after the Second World War by the Jewish people, victims of German genocide, who were citizens of various countries, including pre-war Poland. The Terezin Declaration does not give the United States a mandate to enforce its provisions and contains formulations that are explicitly discriminatory against national groups other than groups of Jewish ancestry, which makes the law 115-171 (Act S.447) unconstitutional.