OUR INTERVIEW. Szewczak: The opposition sought to overthrow the Polish government and the Germans supported it. Perhaps because of the reparations

wPolityce.pl: According to a survey conducted by the Pollster Research Institute for „Super Express”, as many as 58% of the surveyed Poles believe that we deserve to be compensated by Germany. Only 18% were of the opposite opinion; the rest had no opinion on this issue. Meanwhile, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, KO’s candidate for Prime Minister declared on TVN24 that she would not apply for money from Germany. Do you find such a standpoint surprising?

Janusz Szewczak, economist, MP, Law and Justice: Well, it’s a good thing that a few days ago I had an interview for the Japanese newspaper „The Asahi Shimbun” on the same subject. This newspaper has 6 million readers and they were interested in this matter. They have their serious problems with the payment of reparations.

The attitude of some Polish political circles with PO at the head, but also some SLD politicians regarding reparations is shameful. If there is to be a serious reconciliation, an agreement between Poles and Germans, it must mean compensation for the harm and crimes. I don’t think Mrs Kidawa-Błońska and other politicians of the PO consider the 100-200 West German marks that were paid to the victims of concentration camps to be such compensation.

This is undignified buttering up Germany on the part of some opposition politicians in Poland. It is puzzling that the German media, which are also strong in Poland, as well as German politicians, have been so strong in supporting the total opposition in Poland, which wanted to overthrow the legal, democratically elected Polish Government at all costs. Perhaps somewhere in the background there was also the issue of reparations.

Thanks to the patriotic and professional attitude of the Polish professors, the parliamentary team of Arkadiusz Mularczyk for war reparations, of which I am a member, prepared these calculations. I said that this would be about a trillion dollars.

When can we expect these calculations to be officially presented and sent to the German side?

I guess that this must happen soon. Now it’s election campaign time, so any decision on this matter would immediately be a field of attack from the vague mainstream media, which would consider it an element of the political campaign. For this reason, this topic must be addressed after the elections. I would like to remind you that there is also a declaration by the Greek Parliament on this matter and that there is a chance for some international cooperation in this area.

So the work of the parliamentary reparation team is, in principle, complete?

It is definitely in the process of being completed. Now the details are being finalized, but in general all this is closed, done, prepared. There is a question of moving to the next phase and presenting the effect of the work in the form of a parliamentary resolution or a position, as in the case of the Greek Parliament. It seems that even among German politicians and historians it is becoming clear that it is necessary to start negotiations with Poles on reparations.

During the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, the president of this country, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said a lot about German crimes against Poles.

Of course, I received the words of the President of Germany in Poland with great appreciation. These were wise and honest words that should have been spoken to Poles a long time ago, at least 30 years ago, but it is not enough. We have to settle this matter with the Poles honestly. Of course, no country, especially Germany, has ever paid such compensation of its own accord if the victim did not seek compensation. The Germans have not even given back to Poland any stolen works of art so far. The question of settlements has not been solved in any aspect. Politicians of the PO-KO and some politicians of the Democratic Left Alliance do not see a problem with it. We don’t accept the call, „Poles, there’ no harm done”. Compensation for the damage caused by the Germans to generations is a natural thing.

The interview was conducted by Adam Stankiewicz.