“Hitler’s Germany caused indescribable damage to millions of Poles that has never been accounted for”, writes Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the German weekly Der Spiegel. The head of the Polish government tries to explain to German readers why his cabinet is demanding €1.3 trillion in reparations from Berlin.

“I read with interest how Germany continues to unravel the dark sides of its past. For example, in the current issue of SPIEGEL GESCHICHTE: an article under the title “Arisierung: Die Liquidation” describes the carefully planned and rigorously carried out expropriation of German Jews between 1933 and 1939. In this way, the National Socialists created an organisational framework for the persecution and murder of Jews”, wrote Prime Minister Morawiecki.

“It seems to me that German society is well aware of what was done to the Jews”, the head of the Polish government noted, adding, however, that it hardly shines through what the Nazis did in Poland, where during the war, in addition to murder and looting, Poland’s vast cultural output was irretrievably lost.

“It disappeared with thousands of stolen artworks, with dozens of razed monuments, with stolen paintings, shattered sculptures, in burnt libraries and archives, in looted museums, in the ruins of Polish cities and towns”, writes Morawiecki.

Prime Minister Morawiecki also notes that the Germans have not paid, from the Polish point of view, any compensation for the destruction on Polish lands or for the historically unprecedented looting of the neighbouring country.

“We know how difficult it is to get this truth across to the modern world. But in relations between people, as well as between states, truth and justice should be the highest values. With this in mind, we demand that our German partners finally take political, historical, legal and financial responsibility for all the consequences of the attack on our country,” concludes the Polish Prime Minister.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński