What is the correct address to write to, to find out if a person did or not give up their Polish Citizenship? For I would like to write to this place to find out if my grandfather gave up his citizenship. He and his family moved into the French zone of Germany after the war ( I am told probably as a DP) then immigrating to Canada in Jan. 1951.
For my mother was born there in Lublin. So when they got their Canadian citizenship in 1956, I am not sure if that ended my mothers' claim to citizenship. I have a partial address for the civil office in Warsaw. For I would like to write to them to see about getting copies of my grandfathers' and my mothers' birth certificates.
Also, I found an address about the possibility of obtaining records for personnel in the Polish Armed Forces in Britain. Has anyone been in touch with this place? Would they have the records from 1920-1939? I was told by a nephew of my grandfather the he served a couple of times. The first was in the Warsaw uprising of 1920-1921 and then again 1939. Or would the civil records office in Warsaw be able to redirect the letter to the appropriate office dealing with military records from that time? Because if there is a chance of obtaining these records as well would be a boon for me. Thanks.

 

I suspect that if you show up in person, since you are not a resident of Poland, then they will tell you to contact your local Polish consulate.

 

Another update on my case.

My wife received her Polish passport back in March. So she is done!

Me and my son are still waiting for our passports. I called the consulate, and they said that they expect ours to be in the May batch. (They get batches from Warsaw every 2 months) I asked if there are any problems with the application, and they said that if there would have been any issues, then they would have been notified by this time. So, she said I can expect to receive them sometime in May.

Next I need to do this for my second son, but since both my wife and I have current Polish passports, we do not need to get Confirmation of Polish Citizenship for him, we only need to get a Polish birth certificate for him, and it shoulod be a slam dunk. This is much simpler than when your lineage is from a grandparent / great-grandparent, or when you are of legal age and your lineage is to you parent. In cases like those, you need to go through the step of getting Confirmation of Polish Citizenship. I plan to have my friend do this me again directly in Warsaw. I figure I'll be able to to get all the paper work together by September.

 

Congratulations! I hope I can have even a fraction of the success you've had with this process.

 

alyhoud,
I hope yours comes through soon. My approved application for Confirmation of Polish Citizenship sat on thier desk for over 6 months before they decided to notify my friend, even though they kept telling him they have not gotten to it yet, and we need to wait. In reality it only took less than a month for them to complete and approve the entire process.

Its possible that yours is complete and just in a dusty pile even though they won't admit it, or, if it isn't, then maybe once they actually get around to looking at it, it shouldn't take them that long to do. I wish you the best of luck, and it seems luck does play a roll in this process. The whole process is very manual, and it seems it leaves a lot of room for disorganization.

 

Thanks. It's out of my hands now for better or worse.

 

Hello all!

I hope my post will be helpful to others, as I am not in need of help anymore--I received my temporary Polish passport in the mail today! Right off the bat, I'd like to say thank you to curiousgeorge and aylehoud, who were very informative and helpful.

After about 15 months of waiting, I received my confirmation of citizenship. The last 7 of those months were spent using an immigration lawyer in Warsaw to handle my case. It wasn't looking very good for me December 07, as I only had my Polish father's birth certificate, baptismal certificate and US naturalization certificate to prove his Polish heritage. By a stroke of sheer luck, my uncle found my father's old Polish passport from the 70's when he made a final trip to Poland upon graduating from high school in the US. That was all it took and the immigration office immediately recognized his citizenship. It took 3 months for me to get the confirmation of citizenship from then on.

I then took this to the Polish Consulate in Los Angeles, where I applied for a passport, temporary passport and PESEL number. It cost a little over $200 and took about a month to get the temporary passport. They said the real passport will take 3-6 months.

So that's that! Again, if anyone would like the number/email address of the lawyer I used, PM me. (Also, I should emphasize that no lawyer can guarantee an outcome, only their services. For awhile it looked like I paid $700 to be denied citizenship.)

I'm very thankful that this forum exists and hope my story can be of some help.

Cheers,
jenni

 

Congrats! That is a great success story!

 

I'm very happy to hear about another success story and I'm glad that I was able to help in any way. Good luck!

 

Hey guys,

Just in the final stages of aquiring my confirmation of citizenship. Does anyone know the process for applying for a passport and ID card once I have received confirmation? I would assume there are two options; apply through the consulate or directly in Poland.

Cheers

 

From what I know, its relatively quick doing the passport through the consulate, but I believe you have to physically be present to apply for it, no matter where you do so.

 

Hi, I am new on this forum

I am Polish attorney at law who render comprehensive legal services regarding Polish citizenship and other documents require by Polish law to obtain Polish passport (EU Passport).

I can assure you that doing the passport through Polish consulate takes sometimes more then 4 months. Unfortunatelly, if person do not have place (or temporary place) of residence in Poland must submit application to Polish consulate.

Best regards,

Lukasz

 

ברוך הבא אחי

 

Welcome to the forum!

Finally! A lawyer that can offer some insight for all of us! As you may notice, we've been trying to piece together this confusing process throughout the years, with our interpretation of various sources of information.

It would be great to have a lawyer like your self on this forum sometimes!!

 

Another update on my case:

My son and I both got our passports in the mail yesterday!

So the whole process took almost 2 years.

- Applied for a Polish birth certificate in August 2006 in Warsaw.
- Received Birth Certificate in September 2006
- Applied for Confirmation of Polish citizenship in October 2006 in Warsaw
- Recieved Confirmation of Polish citizenship in March 2007
- Since I had to apply for the passport in person, I had to wait for the Consul to do thier tour of duty to my local town, as the consulate is 1800 kms from where I live. they came in October 2007.
- Applied for Polish Passports in October 2007 in Florida
- Received Polish Passports and Confirmation of PESEL number in May 2008.

My passport is good for 10 years, my sons is valid for 5 years.

One funny thing I noticed... The passport says the city I was born in (which is not in Poland) but it does not mention the country. So what if I was born in a city like London, Canada? Everyone would assume it was London, UK, since the county is not specified.

Good luck to everyone!

 

Congratulations! I'm sure it's quite fulfilling to have completed the process after so long! We all hope you'll still check in periodically since you're our amateur expert

 

Thanks! I'll be around, I think I'm addicted now.

 

I know, it's weird isn't it? I wish more people were trying to get their citizenship because it's fun to do this!

 

"Also, I found an address about the possibility of obtaining records for personnel in the Polish Armed Forces in Britain."
gjene,
My father was in the "Polish Resettlement Corps." I sent a payment of maybe 40 pounds and received a photocopy of his file from 1943-1949 which had biographical info he provided (names of schools attended since elementary school, languages spoken, names of cities he lived in, last address in Poland,) not a lot but interesting to me since he died when I was little and there's a lot I don't know about his life.
Oh and the best part is, they told me he had been awarded the "polish War Medal" but never claimed it, so I was able to receive it -- 60 years after the fact!

 

If you know the city name, 1899 should not be a problem, (although some records were destroyed in the war.
I did get my grandfather's birth cert. from the late 1800s. (Since Poland didn't exist then, the records from the part of Poland he was born in were in Russian.)