Reparations

Senior Polish officials Tuesday said they plan to expand a campaign to seek massive World War II reparations from Germany, turning to Greece and other European countries as potential allies.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice party wants reparations, estimated at 1.3 trillion euros, from Germany for its occupation in 1939-1945. How realistic is that figure and its reparations plan?

Seven years after his mother, Magda, died, Szabó, an ethnic Hungarian, finds himself locked in a legal battle over the property she left him and his brother, property she won back from the Romanian state in the early 2000s decades after it was stripped from her father in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.

The UN's special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, Fabian Salvioli, said on Wednesday that measures to protect against COVID-19 in overcrowded jails should not lead to amnesties or pardons being granted to people convicted of serious violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes.

Greece's newly elected prime minister has said during a visit in Berlin that he hopes Germany will agree to start negotiations on war reparations.
After a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told reporters "we hope there will be a positive response."

The German government is underlining its position that the question of World War II reparations to Greece has been settled, after Athens asked Berlin to enter talks on paying compensation.
Greece's ambassador submitted a formal request Tuesday. German foreign ministry spokesman Rainer Breul said Wednesday that "we are examining the contents."

Greek lawmakers on April 17voted through a resolution demanding the payment of German war crime reparations, an issue long disputed by Berlin.

Greece will soon send a so-called note verbale to Germany, repeating a long-held demand for war reparations for the crimes committed by Nazi Germany in World War II, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told parliament on Wednesday, during a debate on a relevant report presented by a House committee.

Conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday the occupation loan Greece was forced to pay out to Nazi Germany during World War Two is "legally open and politically feasible," and its repayment should be made a priority.

Roma children at a camp in Mitrovica, north Kosovo, near the Trepca mine complex. Photo: EPA/ Valdrin Xhemaj.