Loding directly in Warsaw

Hi

Curiousgeorge and others have helped me in the past - I need one last bit of advice!

My story is that my maternal grandmother was Polish, left in about 1932 and became naturalised (as a British subject) in Australia. My mother was born in Australia, as were my two siblings and myself. I'm told this is sufficient for my siblings and I to get a Polish passports.

I want to lodge the application directly with the Warsaw office, using my cousin who is Polish (under cover of a power of attorney, notarised in Australia).

I want to know:

1) Will Warsaw accept 'direct' lodgment like this, of will they make me go through the Polish consulate in Sydney? Has anyone had success with this?

2) If they accept the application, what evidence of the authenticity of my Australian documents will they require? I have got apostilles for original documents (namely birth certificates), but for other documents where I will not be sending originals (eg passports), what sort of evidence of authenticity is required. I have heard that Warsaw no longer accepts copies certified by a 'Justice of the Peace' (because these are unknown in Poland) - but will they accept copies certified by a lawyer or by the police? Please don't tell me the documents have to be certified by the consulate in Sydney - they are a pain to deal with!

3) What is the order for applying? Can I just give them all the documents explaining that I want citizenship confirmed for myself and my siblings - or do I have to formally apply first for confirmation of my grandmother's citizenship, then apply separately for a Polish birth certificate for my mother and us three children, and only then apply for confirmation of our status as citizens?

Thanks very, very much for your help.

 

Re: Loding directly in Warsaw

Yes they will. I have done it successfully this way. Your cousin may need to ask to speak to a supervisor. Its possible tha the inital clerk will insist tha you file at you local Polish consulate. The supervisor WILL know how to deal with your case though.

First a few definitions:

Legalized. A form of certification performed by a consulate. The consulate essentially acts on the behalf of Poland to certify that the copy of the document issued within the jurisdiction of the consulate (in your case Sydney), is in fact a copy of a legitimate original.

Notarized: A form of certification that can be performaed by numerous individuals, delepnding on the law of that country, such as a lawyer, or a justice of the peace as you mentioned. Notarizaiotn essentially certifies that the signature on the original document matches that whcih is on the copy. It does not certify that the origianl was legitimate.

Certified: This is the version of the document that is usually issed and signed by a goverment authority. This would be an ORIGINAL birth certificate, or an ORIGINAL marriage certificate for example.


So yes, you would need to get the copies of your passport legalized by the Polish consulate in Australia. Essentially, the folks at the Polish consulate in Australia act as the Australian document experts for the authorities in Warsaw. Warsaw has no clue what original Australian documents look like, since they could not keep up with all the global versions of a birth certicate or a passport. Warsaw will beleive the folks at the Polish concuslate since they all work for the same government. Getting these copies notarized by anyone else, or simply presenting translated certified originals may cause you grief, since the authorities in Warsaw, may or may not accept the copies, and may refuse them at thier own discretion. If you want to reduce the amount of potential problems for your cousing in Warsaw, then get the copies legalized in Sydney.

It all depends on what type of supporting evidence you have about your ancestors. If you have no evidence to support the fact that your mother is a Polish citizen, then you need to get that first, but If your mother has no supporting evidence that your grand mother is a Polish citizen then you have to get that first.

The birth certificate, or an expired Polish passport of an ancestor does not prove citizenship in and of itself, but it can be a step for the authorities to INVESTIGATE one's citizenship. An unexpired Polish passport, or a certicate of Polish citizenship explicitely proves Polish citizenship.

 

Just a bit of info:

I applied directly in Warsaw. They said I would have a decision within 8 weeks. It's been 9 weeks, and they said to check back in another month. It's not going to quickly for me as it did for curious (2 weeks)

 

Citizenship obligations

Hi all,

I'm applying for Polish citizenship and wondering if anyone knows if you are obligated to vote if you are a citizen (but not resident in Poland)?

Also what is the tax situation? I know that Poland has taxation treaties with most countries so tax won't need to be paid on foreign earnings in Poland (if I never live or work in Poland), but do you need to fill out tax returns etc for the Polish tax office still?

Thanks

 

By the way it waqsn't until 8 months went by that they notified me, although processing only took 2 weeks.

 

Re: Citizenship obligations

No

No

 

An update on my case:

We submitted our passport applications last week. We had to do this in person, even my son had to be there. Don't bother getting the forms online, they only have them at the consulate. It was amazing how many people followed the outdated information on the consulate’s website, and they filled out the old forms, only to be told that they had filled out the wrong ones.

Here are the documents they asked us for:

Me: (1) Polish birth certificate (2) Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document (3) Three Passport Photos

My Son: (4) Polish birth certificate (5) Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document (6) Three Passport Photos

My Wife: (7) Her expired Polish passport (8) Polish marriage certificate (to show here married name) (9) Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document (not required)


The consul was impressed that we each had a Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document. He said that a few years ago, they tried to instill a law that would force everyone to have one of these, if they did not have a valid passport. What they determined was that this process takes soooooo long that nobody could get a passport in time, (DUH?) so they relaxed the laws a little bit, and allow you to use your expired passport, as long as it has not expired too long ago.

I asked him how long was too long, and there was no specific definition for this, and since my wife already has a Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document I asked him to include it in the package just in case somebody decides that her passport expired too long ago. The consul said, "It should be fine without it." I insisted that he include it since the rule was not clear cut, and the document was available to avoid any problems. She already had a PESEL number, although she was no aware of it, it was hand written in her passport, and it did not say PESEL next to it, so only the consul officer knew what it was.

As for my son, since my wife had an expired passport to prove her citizenship, the consul officer said that he did not need a Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document, but since he had it we asked that it be included in the package. He did not have a PESEL, so he had to submit his Polish birth certificate. The consul said that they have relaxed the laws on this as well, and that children can submit their foreign birth certificate with a translation.

As for me, I needed both the Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document and a Polish birth certificate.

He confirmed that the laws have been changing quite rapidly, and depending on who is the director of the passport office, the laws may change again at his or her whim! Worse yet, depending on which clerk your file ends up with at the passport office, that clerk may or may not be lax with your application. There seems to be a lot of luck involved here, and in the essence of time, although they may not always be required, its much better to have a Confirmation of Polish Citizenship document, and Polish birth certificates, and Polish Marriage certificates attached to your application.

We will get 10 year passports, and my son will get a 5 year. We filled out forms to have the passports sent to our home so we don't have to travel back to the consulate to pick them up in person.

The photos were a pain, and MANY people had problems with their photos. I had a tiny shadow behind my head, and the face was too small. My wife's face was too small as well. Other people's photos had the wrong measurements. One couple was told that the contrast is all wrong. I don't think anybody in there got their photos correct the first time! I went to a professional passport photographer, so he guaranteed his work, and he did another set for free. He was not a regular studio photographer, all he did was photos for passports, and all foreign ID's. I don't recommend you take your chances at your local pharmacy. Quite frankly, after listening to how precise they want the photos to be, they should have had a photographer on hand, or let people submit digital photos. Then I thought that I could have taken the photos myself and used Adobe Photoshop to get the contrast and sizing correctly. The bottom line is that it seems everyone gets their photos rejected.

 

Does anyone know if a expired Polish passport is enough to prove citizenship?

My father doesn't seem to have a birth certificate at all, and has yet to update his passport.

 

According to the consulate in DC, it _might_ be enough to prove citizenship, depending on how long ago it expired. There is no clear definition on how long is too long.

Birth certificates on the other hand DO NOT prove citizenship at all. They only help link the person to you as your ancestor.

 

great grandparent

Dear fellow budding polish citizens.
I'm starting my research on my great grandfather.
this ofcoarse is with a view to gaining polish citizenship. now somewhere in these hundreds of posts, there are quotes stating the necessity of both great grandparents being polish citizens for the purpose of taking part in a 'return to poland' type affair that is funded by the polish government. As I'm just interested in the citizenship part,Would I be jumping to conclusions in assuming if my mother (she is the grandaughter)could get citizenship then I could?
I've not yet found out if he was actually born a polish citizen or a german. Story goes he was born somewhere on the german polish border, where, I will soon find out, then he came to Australia started a family and then dissappeared. It is believed he went back to Poland.
thankyou for comments,opinions.
just out of interest, are there many polish Schneiders out there? I know it to be a typical German name, but I suppose its possible my GGPa could still be Polish with a German name.

 

Re: great grandparent

I've read that post as well, although I have not read anything specific to great grandparents in the laws that I've read so far, so I think this might have just been information provided by a consulate to try to discourage someone from proceeding.

There are a lot of ancestors between you and your great grand parent. Depending on what each one did in thier lives, and when they did it, (such as obtain a foreign citiznehsip, join a foreign army, or become a foreign diplomat) that may have cut the chain of citizenship for you. The only way to really find out is to apply.

The place of one's birth has no bearing on whether one is a Polish citizen or not, since Polish citizenship is only determined by your parent's citizenship.

Names are quite irrelelvant as well. Polish blood flows in many countries, for example, there are even Polish-Haitians who go back to the Napoleonic Period. Many of them have Haitian names, and thery continue to speak Polish. This is just a small example. So, whether there are Polish Schneiders or not is irrelevant, even though I'd be willing to bet that there are a few.

 

Hi all,

I have a weird case, and I would like to expose it to get your opinions.

I was lucy enough to start the whole process of getting my polish citizenship and passport some years ago, so I am a happy holder a polish passport since 2002.
I got it because my grandmother, who was really born in Berlin had polish parents.

Up to know, everything is ok. The problem began when I started asking to get a new passport because mine is a handwritten one. Big was my surprise when in the polish consulate they told me that, even though we had the passport, and it's a valid one, we needed to apply for citizenship confirmation in order to get a new one. So, if I loss my passport, or it gets stolen, or it expires I just don't get a new one until I do the whole process of cititenship confirmation.

This, of course was a big surprise for me, since I am living in Europe as a EU citizen with my polish passport. So, I started asking what I needed to do in order to get the citizenship confirmation done.
Then the situation got worse.
Now they tell me that if I apply for citizenship through my grandmother (that's how I obtained the passport), it will get rejected, since my grandmother got married on a year where a different law was applying. This law said that if you get married, your children will have the nationality of the father and not from the mother.
So, basically my mother won't get it, and neither will I. The funny thing is that my grandfather was also polish, but he died many years ago and I don't have enough documentation to prove his citizenship, so everything is getting more and more complicated for me.
My question is: if I already have a passport, is there anything I can do from a legal perspective? Is it possible that I have the passport, and since they changed the law after I got it now I can loose it?

Sorry for my bad english, and thanks in advance for any answer!

 

My unprofessional advice:
It sounds like you have a passport that was issued by a consulate, also known as a consular passport. They used to do these before August 2006. Now all passport applications get sent to Warsaw.

First of all if this info was from a consulate, then confirm with the officials in Warsaw what actions you should take in a situation like this. Many times, the consulates don't always know how to handle strange situations and give people misleading guidance.

Second, if the officials in Warsaw confirm this to be true for a person such as yourself who already has a consulate-issued-passport, then try seeking legal council with a lawyer in Warsaw. If he confirms that it is true as well, then...

Third, you might have a lawsuit on your hands against the Polish government. If they issued this passport in error, then they you should sue to obtain Polish citizenship retroactively from the point when your passport became valid. You may have a tough fight because it is a consular passport, and the goverment of Poland may simply deny any responsability because it was the fault of a Polish consulate for having issued the passport, and they may stand behind thier NEW guidlines...but I'm not a professional. You may need to speak to a lawyer.

Like I've mentioned before on this forum, the laws are changing so rapidly in regards to Polish citizenship in recent years that if one did obtain a passport recently, WITHOUT following all the exhaustive steps I've outlined, then as time goes on the laws will just get more and more stringent, and anyone who seemingly slipped though will eventually not be eligible for a passport renewal.

 

Thanks for your answer, curiousgeorge. This is a long answer, sorry for that...

You're right. My passport was issued by a consulate in 2002, after a process of one year, which was focused on getting the polish nationality of my grandmother. This process was easy, since she had all the proper documentation, and she also got the polish nationality confirmation. After that it was a very fast process for me and my mother to get the birth certificate and consequently the passports.
So, you can imagine my surprise when, by chance, I knew about this new citizenship confirmation process.
At the beginning I thought that it was going to be easy, we just had to the whole process again. It could take time, but it was not risky.
It all got confusing when they told me that it was going to be difficult for me to get the confirmation, since there was a law in Poland, valid at the time my grandmother and grandfather got married and my mother was born, that said that nationality was inherited only from the father and not from the mother. So, even if I can confirm the nationality of my grandmother (something that we did already), it would not be possible with this to confirm the nationality of my mother.
As a consequence of this, I started working on two different alternatives. First, collect as much information as possible to prove my grandfather's nationality. He was also polish, but my problem is that I don't have any proper polish document that can prove that, like a passport. He was born in Berlin, from polish parents, and he managed to escape before his whole family was taken to concentration camp and killed.
I DO have a signed paper issued by the polish consulate in 1947 to my grandmother, confirming that she was polish, and she was married to a polish citizen. The consulate also issued the same paper to my grandfather, the same date, but unfortunately I was not able to find it. When I asked the consulate for a copy of this paper, they said they have moved the consulate in 1950 and that they didn't keep any document before that year.
I would like to find out if there are any files in polish consulate in Berlin, because my grandfather left Germany with a polish passport, so if there is something left after the war they should have information, but unfortunately they don't answer my emails. I am also researching where my grand-grandfather was born. I know he was born in a place called Turka, in Poland, in 1881, and I would like to see if it's possible to get a record of his birth, but there are at least five different towns called Turka at that moment, so I am not sure if this is worth it do it or not.

My second option is to go for the citizenship confirmation as I did before, with my grandmother nationality only. I am afraid I could get rejected, and it's a long process to wait for, so I want to make a safe move and be sure that it's going to work before going with this option.

I am thinking about getting a lawyer, but it's difficult to get somebody you can trust, since I don't know anyboy in Warsaw. It's a very frustrating and stressful process, since I am living in Europe and my whole life here (jobs, bank account, residence permit, etc) is based on the fact that I am a polish citizenship. It's scary to think that if I loose my passport everything that I have will just go away....

 

I would assume that the consulate did not have the ONLY copy. Try contacting the office in Warsaw to determine which department would have a copy of these files in Poland.

 

adiacov wrote:

• I DO have a signed paper issued by the polish consulate in 1947 to my grandmother, confirming that she was polish, and she was married to a polish citizen.

If the paper issued to your grandmother confirms that she was married to a polish citizen, shouldn't that be sufficient to prove your grandfather's citizenship?

If your polish passport is still valid and you never renounced your polish citizenship, why should they question whether or not you are a polish citizen??

Did you contact another consulate to check what they say?

 

Do you still have a document of confirmation of the possesion of polish citizenship issued in Poland?

If you have such a document, then I would provide it. Even if you don't have it now but since you have been issued with a polish passport, that should clearly indicate the possesion of your polish citizenship at that time (2002), and I find totally unreasonable to re-start the procedure every time you need to get a new passport, more over when It is still valid!

 

polskiarg,

Thanks for your answer.

I asked in the consulate if the paper that confirms the polish citizenship of my grandmother would be enough to do the same for my grandfather, and I didn't get a straight answer. My main problem is that they are not willing to help or answer questions in any way, and if I get a proper answer (just because I insisted too much) then I get something like "a proper polish document like a passport would be the desired documention, blah, blah, blah....". It's a nightmare, believe me. With them I never have the feeling that I am doing something right or wrong... I get just silence.

Regarding my polish citizenship, the big question I have, and I cannot answer is not why I have to do the whole process again, but how in the world if I do the whole process again can I get rejected now that I have it.

I think it's not only a question to Poland, but something I should be able to ask to a proper responsible in the EU. But I have no idea where to start...

 

Stop contacting your consulat.e They either have not clue how to help you, or they have no desire to help you. Either way, they aren't helping.

Which country is your consulate in?

Try contacting this lawyer in Warsaw to figure out what to do next:
http://staczek.com/en/seat.html

 

My father was born in Poland and emigrated to Uruguay before the WW2 and lived there for ten years. After that he moved to Argentina and he still lives there. When he applyed for confirmation of polish citizenship they needed a document to show that his parents were married ( because before 1951 the child inheritates the citizenship from the father when the parents are married and from the mother when the parents are not married). My grandparents were married but he didn't have the marriage certificate. In stead he presented a document from the immigration records showing that my grandmother was married to a polish citizen and that was enough.

My father didn't have his passport because he was 5 years old when he emigrated with his mother (my grandmother) and he was anotated on his mother's passport, however he didn't have that passport either, but again he found a document on the immigration records which shows that he was anotated on his mother's passport and also the number of that passport.
That was enough.

It could happend that new regulations come into force at certain time and things which were allawed in the past are no longer allawed at present.

However, you were given confirmation that you hold polish citizenship since you have a legitimate polish passport, no matter how it was given. Therefore you should insist that your passport is your "PROPER POLISH DOCUMENT " which CONFIRMS that you ARE a POLISH CITIZEN and you do NOT need and you should NOT apply for confirmation again.

If I were you, I would contact another consulate to check what they say.