Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski asks Trump to support German reparations for Poland

Shrewsbury MP Daniel Kawczynski has written to US President Donald Trump calling for Germany to pay reparations to Poland for its actions in the Second World War.

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Daniel Kawczynski and Donald Trump

Mr Kawczynski, the Polish-born MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said the Polish government should sue Germany for the devastation caused by the 1939 invasion of Poland.

In his letter to President Trump, Mr Kawczynski said the German occupation of Poland led to the murder of six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews.

He told Mr Trump that the United States was home to approximately 10 million people of Polish ancestry, while there were about a million people of Polish origin in the UK.

History

He wrote: "As you will know, recently many US senators signed a letter asking that the Polish government compensate Holocaust survivors for the appalling abuse that they suffered.

"In addition, in Warsaw 85 per cent of buildings, and cultural history was destroyed and, in 1939, 38 per cent of all Poland’s wealth was stolen and some estimates have put the total cost of damage done to be as high as one trillion US dollars.]

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"Some months ago, you spoke with the then prime minister, Theresa May, and advised her (rightly in my opinion) to sue the EU. I would like to ask that you advise and support the Polish government to consider suing Germany for war compensation."

Mr Kawczynski said he had also spoken to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab about supporting such a move.

"It's unfortunate that there are many people who think this is in the past and should be forgotten, but speaking as someone who lost many members of my family during the German occupation of Poland in the Second World War, I think it's very important to agitate on this issue."