Polish court: 1949 state seizure of Lemko properties was illegal (10/21/01)

Polish court: 1949 state seizure of Lemko properties was illegal

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

PRAGUE - Poland's Supreme Administrative Court in the first week of October passed a precedent-setting verdict in a case over property confiscated by the state in 1949 from Maria Hladyk, a Lemko who was compulsorily resettled in 1947 from her village in Beskid Niski, a region in southeastern Poland.

In 1999, Maria Hladyk's grandson, Stefan Hladyk, applied to the Polish authorities with a request to repeal the 50-year-old decision by which some 11 hectares of land (including 7.55 hectares of forest) were confiscated from his grandmother. The Agriculture Ministry satisfied his request.

In early October decision, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected an appeal by Poland's State Forests, a state-run agency that manages the country's forested areas and which had owned Ms. Hladyk's wooded plot for the past 50 years. The court simultaneously confirmed Mr. Hladyk's ownership right to the plot.

This precedent-setting verdict by the Supreme Administrative Court admits that the nationalization of Lemko properties 50 years ago was illegal. The verdict paves the way for other Lemkos (or their heirs) to regain what was confiscated from them by the Communist authorities.

According to the PAP news agency, Polish courts are currently going over some 200 lawsuits by Lemkos seeking to have their properties in Beskid Niski returned to them.

* * *

Following is an excerpt from an RFE/RL editor's note providing some historical background to the case.

In a bid to deprive the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) - which fought the Polish Communist government in 1944-1947 - of support among Ukrainians inhabiting their ethnic territories in southeastern Poland, the Polish authorities decided in 1947 on a mass resettlement of Ukrainians to the so-called Recovered Lands (Ziemie Odzyskane) - the former territories of the Third Reich incorporated into post-World War II Poland. The Polish army performed the drastic and violent Operation Vistula, or Akcja Wisla, which resettled some 150,000 people. The operation, according to the General Staff, contributed to "the final solution of the Ukrainian problem" in Poland.

The dispersion of Lemkos following the 1947 resettlement immensely accelerated the process of their assimilation. Some Lemko activists joined the Ukrainian movement, but many others chose Polishness to avoid being identified with Ukrainians.

In 1949 the Polish government passed a decree on the nationalization of properties remaining after the resettlement of the Ukrainians and Lemkos. Following the decree, local authorities passed appropriation decisions with regard to resettled owners' land plots and belongings remaining on their administrative territories.

| Home Page |