Warsaw deputy mayors dismissed over restitution scandal

The decision to dismiss Jarosław Jóźwiak and Jacek Wojciechowicz – in charge of real estate and zoning respectively – was announced on Thursday by the city’s mayor, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz.

Earlier this month, Gronkiewicz-Waltz insisted she was not to blame in the scandal and brushed off calls for her resignation.

The controversy highlights the thorny problem of the restitution of property seized under the October 1945 Bierut Decree, named after former Polish communist leader Bolesław Bierut, which legalised the confiscation of plots of private land in the capital.

A special team of prosecutors is now to probe decisions taken in restitution cases in Warsaw following the collapse of communism in 1989.

Gronkiewicz-Waltz, Warsaw mayor since 2006 and a leading light in the opposition Civic Platform party, previously fired three staff over the restitution of a plot of land in central Warsaw.

Gronkiewicz-Waltz said that the decision to transfer the plot was “hastily taken” and that the three officials involved did not consider “all of the circumstances of the case”.

The former owner of the land was reportedly a Danish citizen.

In the 1950s, communist-era Poland paid Denmark, as well as other countries, for property seized under the Bierut Decree.

This essentially means that Danish nationals cannot demand any compensation from the present-day Polish government. (rg)