Hi gjene,

I do not know if it is good or bed offer. I can inform you that my my case I submitted by Charsky from Israel. 1200 EURO for my grandfather, 800 EURO for my father and 650 for my Polish citizenship... more then 2 years ago i submitted it...

BR

Avi

 

Your great-great grandparents would have acquired polish citizenship ONLY IF they were settled in Poland at the time of the act coming into force (31th January 1920). But, from what you say, they emigrated to the US before 1920 and therefore they did NOT hold Polish citizenship, and neither did their children who were born between 1905-1909 because they were not born from polish parents. I don't know if there were international agreements that gave Polish citizenship to people who emigrated before 1920 and were not entitled to any other citizenship, but in any case you must prove that they should ONLY be entitled to hold Polish citizenship after 31th January 1920.

The problem is that there is no article in the 1920 act which covers the situation of people who left Poland before 1920 and never came back after 1920 and whether or not they would be entitled to hold polish citizenship on the date of the act coming into force.

In MY opinion they should become Polish citizens together with their minor children on the 31th January 1920 EVEN If they were NOT in Poland because in the Act there is NOTHING stating that a person should NOT become Polish citizen only because he left Poland before the passing of the Act. See what Charsky says.

 

Hey again everyone,

Well now I have a passport application being processed, just wondered on another issue.

I am going to Poland next month to sort out some things for my wedding in June next year, as I haven't yet got my Polish passport, I will entering and leaving Poland on my British passport. Does anyone think I will have problems getting out of the country etc, don't know if my name is in the Polish system or if my British passport is linked to my Polish citizenship.

Another matter is military service. Am I now eligible for service (32 yrs old)? I live in the UK, so would I have to be a permanent resident in Poland to be called up for service? What about temporary residency in Poland?

Cheers

 

Polish Passport

Hi everybody,

Does anyone know how long it takes to obtain a Polish passport once the application is finished? Some folks have said it takes 6 months to get a passport....I hope not?!

 

Re: Polish Passport

You can check with the consulate, but when I went last year, it was 4 months for my wife, and 6 months for me.

 

Hey Mark,

I went to the consulate in London two weeks ago to make my passport application taking with me my confirmation of citizenship and Polish birth certificate, and was told it would take up to four months to get my Polish passport back. Looks like it is a general time frame (4 mnths) for it to go to Warsaw to be processed and back to London to the consulate to get issued.

Hold on in there mate, the wait will be worth it, you've come this far, I had to wait 18 mnths to get my confirmation of citizenship sorted, so to me, whats another 4?

 

It seems to take about 4 months to get a passport. Passports seem to come back in a timely manner in comparison to the confirmation applications.

 

In theory you should use a Polish Passport when entering and leaving Poland since they don't recognize any other citizenship. If they find out that you are a Polish citizen they can ask you to leave the country with a Polish Passport but I don't think they will hold any information at the airports. As long as you don't mention anything, you should be OK with your British Passport specially now that Poland is an EU member, but as soon as you get your Polish passport, start using it if you go to Poland.

If you never lived in Poland since you were born until your 25th birthday, you do not need to do anything. Also you are older than 28 so they cannot call you for military service. If you are not a permanent resident in Poland then you are not liable of any military service, so you sholdn't be worried.

 

For me it took 2 months, for my father 7 months and for my sister also 7 months.

 

I stand corrected

I guess when it comes to Polish bureaucracy set your expectations low

 

I couldn't agree more...

 

When dealing with ANY foreign country via a consulate, there is always a level of inconsistency in the timeframe with which you can expect a response. Remember, the consulate is only a conduit, they are NOT the final decision maker, so in reality they just forward everything to the governing party.

Plus or Minus 3 months is nothing out of the ordinary for a passport application channeled through a consulate.

This is not unique to Poland. Ask anyone who has applied for a passport from a foreign country.

 

Provided that you have all the documentation, to apply for a Spanish passport from London it takes 10 days, for an Argentine Passport it takes 24 hours and for an Italian passport on the same day of your application.

So far the Polish passport it takes the longest I've ever seen.

 

India is 8 months or so. Russia takes quite long as well, or so I've heard.

 

You are right Slovakia also takes 6 month. Probably the eastern European countries are the once which take much longer in comparison to the western European countries. I don't know much about Asia or Africa.

 

You may have discovered a patern, Canada is 4 weeks.

It seems 2nd world countries take longer and Poland is still on the edge of the 2nd world. It only recently entered the EU, so they still have some maturing left to do.

 

An update on my case - last week I summarized my situation and send it to Charsky and Lukasz Piotrowski. Charsky's office sent back a generic reply requesting $150 for an "eligibility check," and given that that appears non refundable I don't think I'll take that up.

Piotrowski sent a brief reply:

Here's what I then sent him in reply:

So, I guess I will have to wait and see what he says. In the event that he still doesn't think its possible (or just doesn't want to take up the case), what should my next course of action be? I live fairly close to Chicago, so I guess I could take my case to the consulate, but I have the suspicion they probably aren't going to be very open to the idea. I'll try to bring my somewhat Polish-speaking Grandfather with me, a printout of the 1920 Act, and will emphasize that I am a college student, but I'm still somewhat wary of my chances. Anyone have any advice otherwise?

Edit - Also, should I try writing to the Chicago embassy on my case before going there? That would obviously give me a hint as to what they will say, but they might be less receptive to an email than to me being there in person with all the documents completed.

 

I do understand your situation so if I were you I would present my case as follows.

As clearly states in art 2, a person settled in the "TERRITORY" of the Polish State does not mean necessarily to be "PRESENT" after 1920 in what it was Poland but to have been born or have been settled in the territory which formed Poland in 1920. If a person left the territory of Poland before 1920 he should be considered to have acquired Polish citizenship from the date of the declaration of the act if at the time of his death, the territory where he was emigrating from was part of Poland.
If, instead, at the time of his death the territory where he was coming from did not yet form part of Poland (i.e. if he died before 1920), then he should be considered as to have never acquired Polish citizenship.

The tricky part of this is that it says "as far as it is not entitled to another country's citizenship" I don't know if a person who held, for example, Russian Citizenship, was given the choice to keep it after 1920 or otherwise to become a Polish Citizen automatically. The question is if it ever was such a choice. If that is the case, then a person that left before 1920 would have never been given that choice to become Polish. That's why you must be able to prove that your great-great-grandfather was not entitled to another country's citizenship. I'm not a lawyer so all I'm saying is simply speculation.

 

Thanks for that summary – I modified it a bit and sent it to my previous reply to more succinctly sum up my position:

The citizenship question is certainly a possible issue, which I believe I went into a few posts earlier. I'm not sure whether German/Prussian, Austrian, and Russian citizenship itself was given to those in their respective territories that later made up Poland, since I've never heard of Polish immigrants actually having passports from those respective countries. The more pertinent issue I think is whether the birth of 2 of my 3 great-grandparents in the US before the 1920 act matters, since technically at that point they had US citizenship via birth. But I'm not sure that matters at all for children. In any case were that to become an issue one of my great-grandparents happened to be born in Canada en route to the US, and unlike the US, Canada didn't have citizenship via birth from non-citizen parents established. At most she could have become a British Subject from being born in Canada, but that seems to be distinct to some degree from citizenship so that may not matter.


In any case I'll see what his response is. Ultimately Piotrowski of course doesn't have to accept my view or my case regardless of whether its right or not, but getting his backing would certainly seem easier then attempting to go to the consulate and convincing them to agree with me.

 

I think you are doing the right move... I wouldn't go to the consulate yet without the bucking of a lawyer. I know some consulates refuse point blank to even consider cases of persons which left Poland before 1920 and never went back ( that is the situation of the Polish consulate in Buenos Aires, Argentina). At the best they can tell you that they don't know how to handle your case and they would need to present it to the Ministry of Interior in Poland. It would certainly be easier to convince them to agree with you with the bucking of a lawyer.