I am sandwiching this rather pompous piece between two ZGrams more in
the lighthearted vein - yesterday's "Mocking M]ock" and tomorrow's
"Mocking Margaret." If you smile at this one, you have a wicked
sense of humor.
A Polish friend sent me the following with the comment: "Below are the first 22 of 135 paragraphs of a class action lawsuit filed against Poland by Jewish Holocaust $survivors$ and/or heir$."
The piece speaks for itself and is a perfect example of "...How to Make Friends and Influence People."
Civil Action No. CV 99-3487
Law Offices [for the Plaintiffs] of:
Mel Urbach (MU-5690)
One Exchange Place
Suite 1000
Jersey City, New Jersey 07302
Tel: 201-395-4709and
Edward E. Klein (EK-8587)
275 Madison Ave.,
11th Floor
New York, New York 10016
Tel: 212-661-9400
Plaintiffs:
Theo Garb, Bella Youngewirth, Sam Lefkowitz, Peter Koppenheim, Judah Weller, Chana Lewkowicz, Samuel Goldin, Karl Diamond, Hala Sobol, Saul Klausner, and Goldie Knobel.
On behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated.
vs: -
Defendants:
Republic of Poland, Ministry of the Treasury of Poland (Ministerstwo Skarbu Panstwa) and John Does # 1-100.
+COMPLAINT+ [++ underlined]
Plaintiffs, above named and all others similarly situated, by their undersigned attorneys, as and for their complaint, allege as follows:
+OVERVIEW OF THE CLAIMS+
1. This is an action brought by eleven individual plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1330 +et. seq.+ and 1602 +et seq.+ ("Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act") and all other federal and state statutory and common laws against the Republic of Poland, hereinafter referred to at times as "Poland", the Ministry of the Treasury of Poland (Ministerstwo Skarb [sic] Panstwa), hereinafter at times referred to as the "Treasury" or "Skarb", and defendants John Does 1-100, who are foreign governments and/or private bodies and/or individuals, referred to at times as "other Defendant's [sic], the identity's [sic] of which are unknown at this time, that participated in the common scheme alleged herein.
2. The scheme, which has continued during the last fifty four years, involved the forced, coerced "expulsion to extinction" of the Jewish people from Poland through ethnic and racial cleansing, through the use of violence and the threat of violence, including torture and death. Poland, Skarb and the other Defendant's [sic] did commercially occupy, benefit, manage, rent, improve, retain, and eventually foreclose and take illegal title to the assets, including the real property, of all the expunged Jewish people in Poland under the pretence [sic] that such assets were abandoned. All of the defendants have profited and continue to profit from this scheme at the expense of aging and dying Holocaust survivors.
3. Plaintiffs are victims and survivors (or their heirs) of the Nazi Holocaust. Plaintiffs, as a class, have been denied management rights, ownership, control, use and enjoyment of their real and personal property since their initial dispossession during the Holocaust. After World War II, these Holocaust survivors were murdered, beaten, raped, terrorized, tortured and forced to abandon any attempt to retrieve their property or to manage it. This was due to a common scheme of ethnic and racial cleansing that continued in Poland +after+ the Holocaust, which was designed to remove the remaining surviving 10% of the Polish Jewish survivor community from Poland.
4. The notion of profiting from racial and ethnic extermination was practiced by the Nazis [sic] Regime before and during World War II. The Nazis deliberately and systematically looted and plundered Jewish owned assets, thereby enriching themselves and providing the necessary financial means by which to commit and perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity.
5. Germany took advantage of the anti-Semitic climate in Poland by locating the most notorious death camps there, including Auschwitz and Treblinka. Jewish men, women and children from all over Europe were murdered and tortured to death at these and other concentration camps in Poland.
6. When the Nazis retreated from Poland, individual Polish citizens, Skarb, the Polish Government and other Defendant's [sic] sought to capitalize on the misfortune of Poland's Jews, by perpetuating the Nazi scheme of racial cleansing, and deriving profits there from, by moving into and taking possession of Jewish property for commercial purposes.
7. To force the Jews to flee Poland and abandon their assets and property rights, a murderous plan of anti-Semitic racial and ethnic cleansing was initiated in Poland against returning Jews, who had survived the Holocaust. Upon returning to their homeland in Poland, thousands of Jews were threatened and then savagely beaten and/or murdered in their former homes, villages and cities. This culminated in a mass exodus of the majority of Polish Jewish survivors from Poland. It is estimated that over 60,000 Jews fled Poland between July and September of 1946, as a direct result of the Kielce pogrom and the heinous campaign of violence against Polish Jews. Many others were afraid to return to Poland, abandoning any hopes they may have had to recover their assets and property.
8. The Defendant's [sic] in this case were thereby able to benefit and continue to benefit from the scheme of ethnic and racial cleansing against Polish Jews. They secured possession of substantially all the assets of Poland's three million Jews, including valuable real estate holdings, machinery, personal belongings, furniture, currency, insurance policy's, bonds, stocks, gold coins, jewelry, diamonds, ceremonial religious items, and other assets. In the following years and decades, the Defendants illegally attempted to and did secure ownership of these assets, by changing the recorded documents of title and ownership, all of which was done with the acquiescence of Poland and Skarb.
9. During the implementation of this scheme of racial and ethnic cleansing, the Jews in Poland suffered systematic human rights violations including, among other things, beatings, threats of violence, looting, torture, rape and murder.
10. Prior to 1939, Polish Jews made up over +20% of the world Jewish population.+ From 1939 to 1948 Poland's Jewish community of over 3 million had almost vanished. Those few who remained, hid their Jewish identity or changed their religion to avoid persecution. While the Nazi Regime was responsible for much of the destruction wrought on the Jews in Poland, it was the conduct of the Polish Government and the other Defendant's [sic] that divested the Plaintiffs of their property and their rights with respect to such property.
11. Hundreds of towns across Poland witnessed the influx of Jewish survivors after World War II. Polish citizens, that had been hunted for five years by the Nazis, now returned home, with nowhere else to go. In many towns and cities, Jews had not been seen for years. Rather than treating the returning Jews as displaced refugees, the Defendant's [sic] dissuaded the Jews from returning to their homeland and homes, through heinous acts of violence and murder. The Defendants perpetuated the Nazi scheme of "Juden Rein" on their own people, ridding their countryside of Jews. The Defendants were thereby able to seize and commercially profit from Jewish assets and property.
12. The expunging of Jews from Poland and the seizing of their assets and property was only accomplished through the complicity of the Polish government [sic], including Polish police and army forces. Through State sponsored terrorism, the Polish people initiated and participated in attacks against returning Jews. In smaller towns, Jews were lynched and either strangled, shot or stabbed to death. Public hangings of Jews were reported in the press, terrifying those who remained in Poland and those intending or attempting to return. Based on information and belief, these attacks were part of a systematic scheme to wipe out all traces of the Jewish race in Poland after World War II.
13. The Defendant's [sic] were motivated not only by hate, but also by greed. Once the Jews were expunged from Poland, the Defendants seized control of Jewish assets and property, asserting ownership of the property, and managing the property for profit.
14. At the conclusion of World War II, and ignoring the legal consequences of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and racial cleansing, the Polish Government and the Defendant's [sic] permitted these atrocities against Jews in Poland to continue unchecked for several years, until the Jews resigned into surrender through attrition, leaving Poland and their property behind.
15. Rather than hold and manage the property for the benefit of Jewish survivors and their heirs, Defendants sought through murder, fear and physical violence to deprive Holocaust victims of their assets and property. Thus developed a common scheme in Poland, perpetrated by threats, violence, torture, rape and death, which resulted in the forced expulsion and the almost entire depletion of the Jewish people from Poland.
16. Since the Holocaust, Poland, Skarb and the other Defendant's [sic] have engaged in an ongoing pattern of deceit designed to prevent, delay, frustrate and block members of the class from uncovering the truth about their ownership of, and rights to use and enjoy their property remaining in Poland. This pattern of deceit perpetrated by the Defendants was designed to prevent members of the class from reclaiming and accurately determining the total quantity and value of the real estate and other assets wrongfully taken from them.
17. In response to queries from class members, Defendants have used standard response such as: The property was abandoned voluntarily; the property had been confiscated legally; the property was destroyed; documents could not be found; large tax bill were due on claimed property; or claimants were told to return to Poland to assert claims. During this time the Defendant's [sic] were commercially operating and deriving substantial profits from Holocaust victims' assets.
18. As a result of Defendants [sic] continuing conduct, for a period of over fifty-four years, Defendants have commercially managed, retained, and profitted [sic] fom illegally-obtained assets belonging to members of the class, for which Defendants have no legal basis to own, control, manage, retain or receive profits.
19. Poland, Skarb and the other Defendant's [sic] have initiated and continued a process of illegally developing, renting, selling and/or permitting the sales or transferring of assets and property belonging to class members, further frustrating aging survivors and their heirs from recovering their property. Poland is now offering for sale, in the United States and elsewhere, assets of Holocaust survivors, including residential and commercial properties, that rightfully belong to members of the class.
20. Plaintiffs seek to enjoin Poland, Skarb and the other Defendants from further selling, wasting, disposing or allowing the sale or disposal or transfer of property belonging to members of the class.
21. Plaintiffs also seek (i) an accounting and disgorgement by Poland, Skarb and the other Defendants of the assets and property improperly handled, retained or sold in violation of the class members rights and entitlements, (ii) an accounting and disgorgement of the profits made on those assets, and (iii) compensatory and punitive damages to discourage such conduct in the future.
+JURISDICTION AND VENUE+
22. This Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1330, as this action is against a foreign state; 28 U.S.C. 1331, as this case concerns the Constitution, laws and/or treaties of the United States; 28 U.S.C. 1332, as this case involves citizens of the United States, as plaintiffs, and citizens or subjects of a foreign state, as defendants, and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.00, exclusive of interest and costs; 28 U.S.C. 1350, as this case concerns an action by certain aliens for a tort committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the united States; 28 U.S.C. 1367, the supplemental jurisdiction of this Court; and 28 U.S.C. 1605 (a), as an exception to immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Venue is proper in this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1391." -- <End of first 22 paragraphs.>
Thought for the Day:
"The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs."
(Alphonse de Lamartine)
Back to Table of Contents of the July 1999 ZGrams