A Polish member of parliament from the Law and Justice party, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, has directed a set of questions to the Speaker of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia. The focus is the fate of a dossier that details Poland’s losses during the Second World War and the status of copies that were placed in the Sejm Chancellery warehouses but have not been released for public distribution. The inquiry is a follow-up to concerns raised by Mularczyk, who previously led the parliamentary team on reparations and now continues to monitor how wartime losses are handled and presented to the public.
Historically, September 1, 2022 marked the public unveiling of the report on Polish wartime losses at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The project had been under preparation since 2017 and was undertaken by a parliamentary team dedicated to assessing the amount of compensation owed by Germany for the damage suffered by Poland during the war. The effort was led by Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a member of the ruling party. Involved in the endeavour were about thirty historians, economists, and real estate appraisers, along with ten reviewers who contributed to the work.
According to the report, the total Polish losses resulting from German aggression during World War II amount to six trillion two hundred twenty billion six hundred nine million Polish zlotys. In dollar terms, the loss is calculated at approximately one trillion five hundred thirty-two billion one hundred seventy million dollars. The scale of these estimated losses has remained a central element of the reparations discussion in recent years.
Within the tenth term Sejm, a parliamentary team on reparations existed once again, continuing the work that Arkadiusz Mularczyk had commissioned when leading the previous initiative. The public profile of this effort rose as lawmakers and supporters argued that Germany owed substantial compensation to Poland for wartime crimes and damages.
Media coverage has highlighted statements from Mularczyk about the establishment of the parliamentary reparations team and the notable figures who joined it, including references to senior party leadership. The topic has remained a fixture in political discourse, drawing both support and criticism from various quarters.
In recent developments, Mularczyk issued warnings about online messages that he described as troubling. He raised questions about the risk that copies of the wartime losses report could be discarded or otherwise mishandled as part of broader changes to Sejm publishing operations.
The question from Mularczyk to the Speaker of the Sejm, formulated in his official public correspondence, concerns the liquidation process affecting the Sejm publishing house. He asked whether the distribution of the report titled War Losses Suffered by Poland as a Result of German Aggression and Occupation during the 1939-1945 period has been halted and whether these copies are currently warehoused in a closed area of the Sejm Chancellery without distribution. He also probed whether the closure of the publishing house could lead to the sale of the edition in the future and whether the policy stance of the Speaker and the ruling coalition on German reparations has influenced decision making around this publication. The aim was to secure a swift and detailed response from the Speaker on the stated concerns.
The discussions around the publication and its distribution have been carried out in the context of a longer debate about Germany’s responsibility for wartime losses and the ongoing implications for Polish public memory and policy. The exchange underscores how parliamentary oversight and publishing decisions can become politically charged when they touch on historical accounting and reparations demands. Observers note that the handling of these documents may reflect broader positions within the governing coalition on how reparations claims should be pursued and presented to the public.
Additional commentary and analysis has appeared in the press and online outlets, contrasting the official stance of the government with critics who argue for more aggressive or more cautious approaches to reparations. The debates continue to unfold in Poland as officials, historians, and policymakers weigh the financial, moral, and political implications of the report and its distribution. The conversation remains central to how Poland articulates its historical losses and the potential paths toward restitution, both domestically and in international forums. The ongoing dialogue highlights the ways in which the wartime past still informs contemporary policy and public debate, even as new archival decisions are made regarding access to the report.
Source references and coverage related to these events include reports and commentaries from wPolityce and associated outlets, which have provided context and reactions to the reparations discussion. See for instance the broader reporting that contextualizes Mularczyk’s remarks and the parliamentary team’s activities in the period following the report’s publication and related developments. These sources are cited for informational purposes and to illustrate how the story has been framed in Polish media discourse. (Source: wPolityce)