About the Case

Demanding compensation for his family’s manufacturing company that was stolen by the Nazis and subsequently taken over by the Polish government, a Holocaust survivor has filed a case against Poland with the European Court on Human Rights. The case is a major step in a broader campaign by Holocaust survivors and victims’ heirs to urge Poland to finally enact fair restitution legislation for private property that Jews were forced to surrender during World War II.

Should the case succeed, the Court could order Poland to enact such legislation. Henryk Pikielny, 76 and now living in Paris , has filed with the Court after a decade of petitioning the Polish government for compensation and exhausting all possible legal recourse in Poland .

The company MIT Pikielny, in Lodz , was founded by Mr. Pikielny’s grandfather Mojzesz in 1889 to manufacture silk scarves. By 1939, it had grown to 15 buildings, employed 200 people, and comprised 200 looms to manufacture fabrics for women’s clothing. Mojzesz Pikielny was a prominent member of the community. He was a member of the boards of the Lodz Jewish Musical and Literary Society and the Boarding School and Farm for Jewish Children.

There was a tennis court on the property for the family’s use, and Mr. Pikielny recalls playing soccer with his friends on another part of the property.

The Nazis confiscated the company, and Mojzesz Pikielny died in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. Henryk Pikielny survived the Riga ghetto and several concentration camps and returned after the war, along with his father Maks and brother Simon, to Lodz , where the factory had continued to function throughout the Nazi occupation. Following the war, the factory was taken over by Communist government authorities, who appointed Maks to manage the business. Maks and his sons left Poland for Brazil in June, 1946. Maks died in 1970, Simon settled in Israel , and Henryk moved to Paris .

Following the war, the property was nationalized by the Communist government and subsequently transferred and re-transferred to different state-owned entities. Mr. Pikielny was never notified of the transfers nor did he receive any compensation as provided under the then-existing nationalization law.

In 1990, following the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe , Mr. Pikielny began efforts to re-claim his property.  He discovered that MIT Pikielny was still reflected as legal owner of the property and, in fact, continued as such until 1992 when the government instructed that the property be re-registered in the name of the state. In 2004, having pursued all Polish legal and administrative channels, Mr. Pikielny was notified by the government that there was no possibility of receiving compensation for the property.

The New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) is bringing Mr. Pikielny’s case before the European Court on Human Rights, through its Holocaust Compensation Assistance Project. NYLAG has assisted more than 50,000 Holocaust survivors in obtaining information on restitution programs for which they may be eligible, assisting in the application process, and appealing denials with respect to at least half a dozen separate restitution programs. NYLAG took Mr. Pikielny’s case believing that it would meet the Court’s stringent admissibility criteria.

The Holocaust Compensation Assistance Project is funded by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and UJA-Federation of New York .

Mr. Pikielny states in his claim that Poland is staking its ownership of the company on its Communist-era nationalization, and that this violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The Convention was established by the Council of Europe and took effect in 1953. The Convention was intended to represent the Council’s first steps for the collective enforcement of certain rights in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights was established in 1959 as a method of enforcing the obligations of the states that entered into the Convention.

Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the Convention states: “Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.”

“Other States with similar histories to Poland have accepted responsibility for illegal Nazi and Communist-era actions by enacting statutes providing compensation to those who were forced to leave their homes and abandon their possessions,” states Mr. Pikielny’s claim.

The claim notes that “hundreds of thousands” of individuals were deprived of their property rights on the same basis. Mr. Pikielny is filing the claim on behalf of himself and four other heirs to the company.

Poland ’s constitution states, “ Everyone shall have the right to ownership, other property rights and the right of succession. Everyone, on an equal basis, shall receive legal protection regarding ownership, other property rights and the right of succession.”

Mr. Pikielny’s claim notes that Poland has recently joined the European Union and must abide by EU laws and regulations, and that in 2003 the European Parliament called for quick and adequate resolution of the issue of land seized from Holocaust victims.

“Poland’s continuing failure to clarify the status of property ownership rights within its own borders will have potentially serious moral and economic implications not only for the stability of its own society, but also for the expanded EU,” states the claim.