Since 2015, since the national conservative PiS took power again in Poland, government and party members have been fueling the debate about reparations, above all PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. For example, on the national holiday in 2017: “The French were paid. The Jews were paid. As compensation for World War II. But not us, Poles.”
The topic is played regularly, also to score points domestically. According to a recent survey, almost half of Poles are of the opinion that Germany still has financial obligations towards Poland. For more than 70 percent of Poles, Germany is morally in debt in connection with the Second World War. Parliamentary elections are next year. The PiS will put the issue of reparations at the top of the agenda in the election campaign, as it has done recently. “We won’t give up,” Kaczynski promised on his summer tour, regularly mentioning the topic.
