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I want to explain why I'm extremely cautious when someone starts talking that Poland should "return" something to Germany.
During the WWII Poland, victim of the German agression, lost 6 million of citizens and unbeliveable amount of property, real estate, infrastructure and all you can imagine, including museal and archival exponates.
Only in Warsaw the losses (not including the art and archives, only the normal, material things like houses, machines, cars and other property) were estimated by Warsaw President's Special Comission for 45 billions 300 millions of USD (in nowadays prices).
My family lost during the war everything (except lives) two times: first in 1939, when almost immediately after capturing Warsaw Germans created "German Only Zone" ("Nur Fuer Deutsche") on the Szucha Alley were family of my paternal Grandpa lived. They had only 15 minutes to leave, and there was no replacement apartament. Family of German SS or Gestapo officer who "inherited" my Grandpa's apartament took not only furniture and dishes, but even supply of jams and juices prepared for the Winter by great-grandma.
Another time they lost everything in 1944 during Uprising, their house on Madalinskiego street was for six weeks on the frontline similar to those in Stalingrad. Only broken brass plate was found in the rubble after the war.
All we have now from before war is the Great-Grandpa's prayer book, as the brass plate was lost somewhere.
My grandfather also didn't manage to live long enough to get money from German govt for almost two years of slave labour for Germany in Stutthoff Concentration Camp, as he died in 1992, and Germans started to pay about 1995 (about 50 years after the war), after strong international pressure.
We do not want our apartament, furniture and jams back from Germans. It is history. I also do not blame contemporary Germans for sins of their fathers and grandfathers. But if Germans want something back, OK, we can talk about it, but we should start from our losses, as not we, but Germans were agressors in that war.
Amen.
Grzegorz Mazurowski
Warsaw, Poland
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