Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Murawiki on Thursday criticized the US Senate´s demand for compensation for Holocaust survivors whose property was nationalized under communist rule.
"Claiming for any compensation from Poland ... is not only a mistake ... but also detracts from the established historical truth," he said in an interview with the weekly Catholic magazine Gusk Niedzelni.
Murawiki stressed that Poland was the first and the largest victim of World War II, where it witnessed the destruction of many cities and more than a thousand villages.
He asserted that the allegations that Poland must pay compensation lack any moral or legal basis, adding that it is Poland that should receive compensation for the losses incurred by the war.
A group of 88 US senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in early August demanding "bold initiatives to help Poland resolve" the issue of the property of the victims of the Holocaust.
The letter said that these properties, along with other non-Jewish property, were nationalized after the country fell under Soviet rule after the war.
About six million Poles were killed in World War II, nearly a sixth of its pre-war population. The dead include about 3 million Polish Jews.
