Re: Possibility of Polish Citizenship

Your father was born in Germany in '44 and lived there with his father until '55. Yet, you say that your grandmother emigrated to the U.S. from Poland in '55 and married your grandfather then. There's something missing here. Did your grandmother emigrate from Poland or from Germany? Is your Polish grandmother the mother of your father or just his step-mother? If his natural mother, was she married to the father of the child at the time of the child's birth? These kinds of issues are very important when attempting to make a citizenship claim.

 

Alphazip,

Pardon for the confusion, but I am learning this all as well.

My father was actually born in 1946 - '44 was a typo.

As a quick background, my grandfather, an American citizen, moved back to Poland at the age of 3 with my great grandfather (story has it, apparently my great grandfather didn't like life in America too much). That being said, my grandfather worked on the family farm until the 1939. At that point, the Nazis came in and seized the property and sent my grandfather into a forced labor camp. In the camp, that is where he met my grandmother. Also, it is interesting to note, that my grandfather and grandmother were married in Germany during 1943 - we have no documents proving this occurred though.
So during 1946, my Grandmother, along with my father, took the boat over to America. What is interesting is that she wasn't naturalized at this point... she just had a "Certificate of Identity in Lieu of Passport" granted by the US consulate in Frankfurt - apparently granted because she married my grandfather. However, as I noted before, my grandmother did not get her "Certificate of Naturalization" until 1955.

Your Questions:
Yes, my Polish grandmother is the mother of my father - not a step-mother.
Yes, she was married to my grandfather at the time of my father's birth.

My Questions:
I can't find a copy anywhere of the 1920 Citizenship Act - do you know where I can procure one? Secondly, will only the 1920 Citizenship will be applicable to my circumstance, not the 1962 Citizenship Act?
How do you think my grandfather entered Poland when he returned with my great grandfather since he was a US citizen? Could, somehow, be have been granted Polish citizen upon returning?
As you can see, my situation is complex. From my understanding, Polish immigration law leaves a lot of room for subjectivity. This being said, I want to find an attorney to circumvent the Polish consulate here in America. Any ideas? ...I filled out the questionairre for Ilan Charsky & Co (http://www.icharsky.com), and waiting for a response.

As you mentioned, I am definitely cognizant that having Polish citizenship is having EU citizenship. I graduate university in December and I want to move/work in Europe, hence, my rationale.

Thanks,
~Mike

 

Citizenship laws fall under the responsability of the Minister of Interior and Administration (Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji). The Parliment (i.e. the Sejm) is the one who makes the laws.

Unfortunately the Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji website only has laws since 1998, probably since the organization was only created after communism fell. The Sejm on the other hand lists the laws since 1918, but they only have the more recent ones scanned in for viewing online. You could probably try to email them and request a copy of these laws.

The main citizenship law from 1920 is: Dz.U. 1920 nr 7 poz. 44

There were many ammendments to this law, even as recently as 1938. Here are all the amendments:
Dz.U. 1920 nr 52 poz. 320
Dz.U. 1920 nr 57 poz. 358
Dz.U. 1920 nr 92 poz. 615
Dz.U. 1921 nr 39 poz. 246
Dz.U. 1921 nr 59 poz. 375
Dz.U. 1923 nr 51 poz. 361
Dz.U. 1923 nr 53 poz. 374
Dz.U. 1924 nr 22 poz. 240
Dz.U. 1925 nr 17 poz. 118
Dz.U. 1926 nr 93 poz. 545
Dz.U. 1928 nr 95 poz. 843
Dz.U. 1938 nr 16 poz. 114

The main page to the Sejm webiste is here:
http://www.sejm.gov.pl/

You can use thier search tool to see the law titles, and if there is a PDF, you can view the document in the results:
http://isip.sejm.gov.pl/prawo/index.html

 

By the way, I just spoke to my contact from Poland again, and when he went to the office in Warsaw to submit my citizenship papers a few weeks back, the clerk showed him a huge shelf full if small briefcases. Each briefcase contained applications from a single Polish consulate / embassy from all around the world. It seemed like they were collecting dust, since the priority for them is dealing with local applicants, and they get to the consular applications when they have spare time. That's why it takes so long to do it via the consulate. Basically I jumped the line ahead of anyone that is doing this through their local consulate by getting it done directly in Warsaw.


An update on my case:
I already got my Polish birth certificate, and marriage certificate as I mentioned in an earlier post. Three long form copies, and three short form copies. I also got a Polish birth certificate for my son. As for the proof of Polish Citizenship application, the clerk could not give a definitive answer on how long it could take. The application was submitted a month ago at this point. My wife's case has been transferred to her home district this week. She was born in Poland, but according to the new laws she needs proof of Polish citizenship to get a passport, since her old passport is expired. The clerk said it could be a couple of months, or even 6 to 8 months for the application to go through. It all depends on how quickly they get responses from the offices and institutions they will need to contact (both foreign and within Poland) in order to verify my lineage. I could only imagine, in a case like Pawel had mentioned earlier, investigating one's great-grandparent lineage could take a really long time for them. 50 zloty sounds like deal when you think about all the work that is involved on their part. Once we both get our proof of citizenship, we'll file the application for our son.

 

Thanks, Mike, for the added details. Your case is not as straightforward as it first appeared. Here's a recap: your great-grandfather on your father's paternal side was born in Poland (though, depending on the year, it may have been Germany or Russia). He emigrated to the U.S. and if he became a U.S. citizen after 1920, he technically lost his Polish citizenship (if he ever was a Polish citizen in the first place, based again on his year of birth and when he left). While in the U.S. he had a child, your grandfather, who was a U.S. citizen by birth. Your great-grandfather returned to Poland, taking your grandfather with him. While in Poland before WW II, I assume they would have been considered Polish citizens, though it is quite possible that any paperwork that existed stating that fact could have been lost during the war years. Your great-grandfather died at some point (apparently in Poland) and your grandfather was arrested by the Nazis and sent to a labor camp, where he met a Polish woman. They were married during the war (1943) in Nazi Germany. (Were prisoners really allowed to marry?) After the war, they had a child, your father, who was born in postwar Germany. The U.S. consulate declared your father an American based on his father's birth in the U.S. (though he apparently had only lived in the U.S. until age 3). The consulate also granted your grandmother an identity card as a displaced person married to a U.S. citizen. They all traveled together to the U.S. in '46 and your grandmother became a U.S. citizen in '55. So, both sides of your father's family were Polish citizens...it's just a matter of finding the documents to prove it. So far, you have tried to prove it thru your father's mother, but there are a couple of important issues in regard to her that could be settled by seeing the 1920 citizenship act (I don't have a copy): 1) did women who married foreigners lose Polish citizenship (if your grandfather could have been considered a foreigner...he was probably a Polish citizen), 2) did children born out of wedlock take the citizenship of the mother. The reason I mention "out of wedlock" even though you say your grandparents married in 1943 Nazi Germany, is because if no record of the marriage can be found, the child may be assumed by authorities to be illegitimate. Strangely enough, that might even help your case, because in other citizenship laws I've seen (e.g. British) from this period, a child born without the parents having been married automatically acquired the citizenship of the mother. That would make your father Polish at birth thru his mother, even if not thru his father. Do you have a copy of your father's German birth certificate? Does it say his parents were married? Did they ever marry a second time, say after your father was born? In answer to one of your questions, yes, it is the 1920 citizenship law that mainly governs your claim, because it was in effect until 1951. (The 1962 act is not retroactive.) Since your grandmother did not take U.S. citizenship before 1951, she did not lose Polish citizenship from that act. Because this is all so complicated and involves labor camps and loss of documents, yes, I think it would be wise to go thru a lawyer who is used to dealing with such issues. Who would be more familiar than a lawyer mainly helping Jewish applicants? Here is a newspaper article that mentions Ilan Charsky:
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050418 ... -8760r.htm

 

nymike83,
I really think you should wait until Charsky emails you back, or try to find another attorney who can help you. Here is a quote from his website:

"Applications by Polish natives or their descendants, based on the citizenship of a Polish native who emigrated from prior to January 1951, are often rejected unjustifiably, due to an erroneous interpretation of the 1920 Polish Law. With direct handling, we present the relevant arguments to overcome this problem, at the initial stage of the application. "

 

Here is an interesting article about a "polenlager", a labor camp for Poles inside Germany that was liberated by the U.S. in 1945. One interesting line: "Hundreds of children of Polish emigrants, who live today in the USA, Canada, Australia, South America and many European countries, have the name of Wildflecken on their birth certificates."

Could your father be one of them?

http://www.dp-camp-wildflecken.de/janies-return.htm

This Wikipedia article describes the different types of camps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cam ... rld_War_II

 

curiousgeorge I would like to thank you for all the detailed and useful info you have provided on this forum about the process!

I'm soon starting the application process for getting the Polish citizenship/passport for myself. My father is a Polish citizen with Polish passport living in Warsaw so there is no question that I have a right to the citizenship.
I don't have it originally because I was born in Finland and I only have Finnish citizenship. I lived with my Finnish mother and my father soon moved back to Poland. As Poland was considered a poor communist and restricted country in the beginnig of 80s by my mother, my birth was never registered in there and neither did I naturally get the citizenship as Polish officials don't know about my existence. Now, however, I'd like to reclaim my Polish citizenship because I have a right to it. According to the Polish embassy I'll have to go through the same process as everybody else (registering my birth in Poland -> apply for proof of polish citizenship, apply for a passport).

Curiousgeorge's earlier post defining the steps of the process became particularly useful for me because I have my father in Warsaw who can take care of direct handling of the papers there.

So now I'm in the first step where I would need some more details:
What is the correct text for the "power of attorney" I should write for my father to represent my case with Polish officials (registering birth, application for proof of citizenship etc...)?
I asked this from the Polish embassy by e-mail but they answered that it's my responsibility to write the text for "power of attorney" and not theirs, they can do just the translation of the paper and verify my signature after which it should work in Poland.

I have also a few other questions but this is the first step and I would appreciate if somebody can answer before next Monday when I'll be in the capital and could visit the Polish embassy to do this...

Maybe I could contribute some information too. I saw someone earlier in this topic wondering about Polish conscription. So here is an official answer I got from a Polish consul:
"Military service. If you will get the Polish citizenship you will be obliged to serve at the Polish army only if you will move to Poland and stay there for good. If you will get the Polish citizneship and your place of permanent resident will be located out of Poland (of course you may visit Poland any time you want) you are exempted from this duty by law."
Might be a relief to many who weren't sure about this

 

Strange that the embassy told you they can't do it for you. When I inquired at the embassy in Montreal, Canada they insisted that only the consulate can write a power of attorney for use in Poland. The polish notary/translator I found locally was much cheaper, and so iI used his services instead. So far everything has been fine with the contact using my power of attorney, so I guess it doesn't NEED to be written by the consulate.

Either way, I will try to see if I still have some copies. I know I had about 10 originals, since they will be very needed by the person in Poland (i.e. your father in ths case) I'm not sure if I gave them all to my contact in Poland, or if I have any left. If I have any in my possesion I'll transcribe the contents here.

 

adamsson,
My contact in Poland has all the copies. I will ask for a copy, but I won't have it for Monday. Maybe in a few week?

 

Here is a sample power of attorney, conveniently written in Polish and English. You could use this as a model, but remove Urzedum Patentowym (Patent Office) and and insert Urzad Stanu Cywilnego (Civil Registry Office) AFTER Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, AND...of course remove the English translation. That should cover every official department your father would need to deal with. Urzad has a Polish accent mark under the "a" you'll need to include (see here: http://www.wroclaw.pl/m3493). Maybe curiousgeorge can take a look and see if he agrees, since I think he knows Polish.

Power of Attorney: http://www.katzarov.com/downloads/power ... atents.pdf

 

Situation Update

So I have an update in regards to my situation...

After some time getting in touch with the consular general at the Polish consulate in NY & the people at Charsky... (http://www.icharsky.com/profile.asp)
they both told me it was POSSIBLE for me to claim Polish situation considering my circumstance.
This is incredible news and I am very ecstatic on my dream becoming realized.
However, all good things come in time I suppose.
I was told by the consulate the process for claiming citizenship & then acquiring a passport would be about 14 months.
An attorney at Charsky told me the whole process would take 10 - 14 months and would cost about $3200.
The perceived benefit going through Charsky is that apparently I do not have my grandmother's birthcirtificate - just an affidavit - so they will do the investigating and handle all other BS.
10-14 months kills me though... ugh, any thoughts/suggestions are more than welcome.

Thank you guys for listening and all your suggestions.
All in all, I am very happy over the whole situation.

 

Hi again,

Thanks alphazip for the info on the power of attorney! I think that will be enough for me to write a proper one in Polish. The embassy told I can get my signature for it verified also with a Finnish public notary (much cheaper) even if the text is in Polish. Curiousgeorge can yet verify if he can get a copy of the power of attorney the contact in warsaw has used successfully.

Now here are yet some more questions regarding the process, mostly referring to the thorough info of the process posted by curious on page 3 of this thread:

1) My parents are and were not married. Does this mean I don't need to take care of (5) (marriage certificate) at all and everything will work fine without it?

2) Referring to step (4) my mother was not born in Poland and she has no polish roots, my link to Poland is the direct fact that my father is a Polish citizen. Do I need to get her Finnish long-form birth certificate or is my father's Polish one fine alone as he is the one who links me to Poland?

3) Referring to (3a), do I need some kind of paper even if I have not been to any army? 4a is not a problem as my father was in the Polish army when he was young and obtaining proof should be easy...

4) Referring to (7), it seems obtaining this document at all is not possible. Here is the reply I got from my father when asking about it: "No chance to get a copy of my passport from the '80s. At these times the passport was applied from police for one certain trip and we were obliged to give it back to the police station within 72 hours after coming back to Poland. As I have spent more time abroad than I declared while applying for passport I was "punished" being refused the passport while applying for it for another two years. Once the police waived the refusal after 2 years. I have received a new passport without any exit visas.
We were not allowed to have passport at home and we did not receive it to keep it at home after its validity was over."
I was wondering if this step (7) is necessary at all in my case because my father never actually expatriated from Poland for good (except a couple of years work practice in Finland in the eighties, which was probably considered temporary)

5) When I get translations of my birth certificate and of the copy of the passport, do I need to get the Apostilles for the documents before the translation or after, or both?

Would be very helpful if somebody can answer (or even guess the answer) for these, thanks in advance

 

I naturally sent some of the questions above also to the Polish consul by e-mail and already got answers, so might be nice to share them:

Q: My parents are and were not married. Does this mean I don't need to take care of marriage certificate at all and everything will work fine without it?

A: If your parents were not married you can not deliver us their marriage
certificate for sure. We do not care about it.. Full version of your birth
certificate is enough. Frankly speaking if we are writting about marriage
certificate we are interested mostly in your family status not your parents.
So if you are married you have to deliver us your marriage certificate. If
you have child (children) you have to add their birth certificates as well.

Q: When I get translations of my birth certificate and of the copy of the passport, do I need to get the Apostilles for the documents before the translation or after, or both?

A: You may have an apostiile on each particular document or you may have an apostille on each set of documents (for example birth certificate together with its translation). It is only up to you.

Q: "Parent's exit visa, or immigration travel voucher, or immigrant visa, or anything that shows how they exited Poland." <- what if this is impossible to get?

A: In case of lack of document simply written statement is enough.

...

 

adamsson,

1) If they NEVER married, you can still proceed with out it. My instructions assume they did marry, and if so, the marriage certificate should be provided. You can prove your lineage by your father's birth certificate and yours showing his name on it. Really the marriage certificate is a single doc that links everybody together, so it just makes it easier for them, but they can do without it.

2) Since your mother has no Polish lineage, there is no need to get her birth certificate registered in Poland. Actually I'm not even sure that she could get registered in Poland. Everything will be based on your father's lineage.

3) If you have not been in the army, you don't need anything for this step. You still may need your father's army proof, if he attended.

4) Obviously an expired or unexpired passport makes things simpler, since its recognized easily by the Polish authorities. The other option is just as the consulate told you, to get a document showing how your father exited Poland, or a document that shows how he entered the next country. But since your father never exited, his notarized statement will probably suffice to get the ball rolling. It will just take the Polish authorities a little longer to corroborate his statement without any supporting documentation. If they can't find proof, then they may deny the case to claim citizenship. This is where a lawyer comes in handy, since he can find the proof for you by scouring the archives, instead of allowing yourself to be a the mercy of the authorities, and their possible ineptitude to prove this for you. Its not in the best interest of the authorities to prove this for you, so they may not go the extra mile to find the right information. Its best that you have the proof up front.

5) I got the Apostille and the birth certificate in the US for my son at the same time and got them both translated together. I think you need to ask your local authorities to issue the certificate and the apostille together, since one is proof that the other is authentic. Getting the apostille at a later date would probably defeat the purpose.

 

Re: Situation Update

nymike83,
Will you take the lawyer, or go with the consulate?

 

When I told the Polish Consul by e-mail that I'm going to apply for confirmation of possession of the Polish Citizenship by direct handling from Warsaw he answered the following:

"Coming to the confirmation of the possesion of the Polish citizenship I am afraid that according to the Polish law the person leaving out of Poland and applaying for it is obliged to process everything through Polish diplomatic mission abroad.
You can do it directly (I mean without dealing with Polish dipomatic mission abroad) only if you have a place of residence in Poland."

Didn't you curiousgeorge have any problems with this? I wonder also if this is true how does it work with people who use icharsky.com for example and live abroad. Somehow I think this cant be correct.

 

I have had no problems. The power of attorney I gave my friend in Poland has been used in numerous offices to prove they he has the right to process this in my name. Every office that has seen it has accepted it without issue, and my friend has been able to process all the applications.

So far using the power of attorney I gave him he has gotten:
1) A long form birth certificate for my wife (she only had a short form). My wife is from Poland, but he had ti get it from an office other than Warsaw, since my wife is not from Warsaw.
2) A long form marriage certificate for my parents. They only had a short form, and so a long form had to be applied for. They were both born and married in Poland.
3) My long form birth certificate from Warsaw (I was born in Canada)
4) My son's long form birth certificate (he was born in the USA)
5) My long form marriage ceritificate. I was married in Canada.
6) He has applied for the proof of citizenship for my wife and me. The applications are pending.
7) When our proof of citizenship is approved, he will apply for proof of citizenship for my son as well.

You are right. If you have a person who lives in Poland, you can get a power of attorney for them, and they can do it in your name. This is exactly how a lawyer will do it as well, a simple power of attorney, and “voila” the lawyer has the permission to do it for you locally in Poland. For some strange reason the consulates think they have this special power over us, since they don’t get many request for people trying to do it locally. In fact it was the consulate that suggested I have someone in Poland handle this for me, but although they said it would take less time, they could offer little info on the process. People either go to the consulate or do it locally, but getting info from the consulate about doing it locally confuses the hell out of the consulate.

Coming to the confirmation of the possesion of the Polish citizenship I am afraid that according to the Polish law the person leaving out of Poland and applaying for it is obliged to process everything through Polish diplomatic mission abroad.
This statement is only true, if you don't have a power of attorney for someone who has a residence in Poland. You yourself, probably cannot apply for it directly.

 

pre 1918

Is this route an option for descendents when the family member left before 1918? Has anyone been successful with pre-1918 documentation?

 

Polish Citizenship

Hello everyone,

Well curiousgeorge and adamsson, this latest thread has completely thrown me off what I thought was the right way to go about doing things.

I was recently in touch with the consulate in London, who said that as my father is a Polish citizen, in theory so was I, and all I needed for a passport application was the following;

Completed application from the consulate
Covering letter in Polish
Proof of Polish heritage - fathers documentation
Birth certificate - translated
2 Passport photographs

Now, after reading this thread, I here that a birth certificate needs to be registered in Poland etc as curiousgeorge mentioned in the long list of steps to be carried out.

Guy's can you confirm which is the proper way to go about this, what I was told or what you have mentioned.

Also, does anyone now the address of the Urzad Stanu Cywilnego office in Warsaw? And is there a fee for the birth certificate registration etc. ?

I will be in Poland quite regular now, so it may be a good idea to find someone to act on my behalf.

Cheers for any info

Duane