Participants in a DW.com street survey voiced frustration with renewed demands for compensation.
“We can’t listen to this anymore, everyone keeps asking for reparations,” one respondent said, arguing that history “is basically behind us” and that the debate does little to foster unity in the European Union.
Another added: “If something has been closed, it should stay closed.”
Some interviewees called for a broader reckoning with the past rather than focusing on payouts.
“History has to be worked through and accounted for by everyone,” one woman said, questioning whether “payments alone will solve anything” and when such disputes would “finally calm down.”
DW.com raised the topic as Nawrocki arrived in Berlin, where he is set to discuss not only European security and the war in Ukraine, but also reparations related to Poland’s losses in World War II. In a recent interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, Nawrocki said he holds a different view from the German government, which maintains the matter is settled.
The Polish president’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, said earlier this month that Nawrocki would bring up reparations with Steinmeier, including the return of cultural property and financial compensation.
He argued that it is impossible to overlook the decisions taken at the 1945 Potsdam conference, which concluded the war and shaped Europe’s postwar order, or the circumstances under which communist-era Poland, under Soviet pressure, “apparently renounced” claims.
Berlin cites a 1953 declaration by the communist government of Bolesław Bierut relinquishing reparations from East Germany as proof the case is closed.
A special parliamentary commission established under the previous Law and Justice government estimated Poland’s reparations claims against Germany at €1.3 trillion.
(jh)
Source: Polskie Radio 24