Re: Polish Citizenship [part3]

Thank you for listening to my strong worded demand.

 

Wow, we're up to 3 separate threads now?! As great as it would be to have a single forum for all the topics we've discussed in this thread, I will agree that it is nice to have a one-stop shop where everything is in this single thread. Though if this is your first time reading through it, it would be very overwhelming and different topics (threads) in a single Polish Citizenship Confirmation forum would keep it far more organized.

If only I had passports....

Anyway, I've been in correspondence with several lawyers in Poland discussing my case as it stands right now. I've received nothing but positive feedback but unfortunately I'm at a standstill. (Thank you downward spiraling American economy! Now would be the perfect time to already have my Polish passport...) One lawyer in particular suggested searching the European Archives for info on my grandparents (and every lawyer agrees that going along my paternal lineage instead of my grandmother would be correct since they married in 1946 and her citizenship would be determined by his) based upon the Displaced Camp they were in. Has anyone done this before?? Where would you suggest I begin looking? If it's possible I can do this without assistance from a lawyer, then I'd rather do it on my own.

Thanks
Sue

 

Oh and a quick word about iCharsky's firm....repeatedly tried to contact them and they never responded whatsoever. Perhaps they have too many cases? Who knows but other lawyers that were suggested in this thread were far more responsive.

 

I need some help. I have been in contact with a lawyer and he is contradicting what I believe to be true.

Family members were born in Poland, came to Canada 1928 & 1930. Married one another 1931 in Canada. Daughter was born 1932. Daughter got polish citizenship at birth, both I and lawyer agree on this.

Now, I got an email saying that because the daughter got Canadian citizenship before 1951, she lost her polish citizenship. He is saying she lost it in 1950 when she became an adult. He used the "The Law of Return" for Israel as an example. Each Polish female that emigrated to Israel received automatically Israeli citizenship (assuming she was Jewish). Due this fact they also lost Polish citizenship (assuming that obtained Israeli citizenship till 19/01/1951). Now it is my understanding that right of blood (ius sanguinis) and right of soil (ius soli) do not affect one another. I called the Canadian Immigration Department and they said that although the Canadian Citizenship Act, the first every Canadian citizenship act, was passed on January 1, 1947, she, the daughter is Canadian at birth in 1932 because she was born in the territory of Canada.

I have a document from the MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR
dated July 9, 1925, it is American, but it deals with right of blood (ius sanguinis) and right of soil (ius soli), the same concept/rules as in Canada. http://www.polishcitizenship.pl/index.php?id_section=5&id_sub_section=8 "According to article 4 point 1 of the act dated 20th of January 1920 the Polish citizenship is obtained by birth. Then everybody who was born of a person who has become a Polish citizen alternately of a person who obtained Polish citizenship on one of grounds that are designed in mentioned act is a Polish citizen regardless of the fact that he was born in The Polish State or abroad.

Thus the persons who were born of a Polish citizen in America after the act dated 20th of January 1920 came into force are, without exception, Polish citizens and they should be considered as such although they became simultaneously American citizens."

Polish Citizenship Act 1920 http://www.polishcitizenship.pl/index.php?id_section=5&id_sub_section=7 if you need it for reference.

The problem is that her daughter was born in 1952, which would be after the lawyer is saying she lost citizenship in 1950. As a note, in the Polish Citizenship Act of 1951 women and men passed citizenship so being a woman is non-issue.

Can you give me your opinions or if you have other documentation to support this right of blood (ius sanguinis), right of soil (ius soli) issue.

 

Actually Harjeet, if I am not mistaken, anyone born prior to 1947 would have been classified as a British subject not Canadian. So, please double check this. If I am right, you might be able to use this tact to obtain want you want.
Indirectly, having different subheadings might help those that are following in our footsteps. It is a bit awkward trying to scroll through each part of this discussion. Unless, someone is willing to provide a summary of each part and what part and page a certain piece or topic can be found and posted. That is part of the reasoning I mentioned about a pdf file for both parts.
I found it a bit awkward having to download each page, page by page. Not only that, when I have attempted to print a hard copy, each page took up to 5-6 pages per and some of the words on the right side did not get printed because of the page format.

 

I specifically asked the Citizenship and Immigration Canada this question about "activation" date. I told them she was born in 1932 and I needed to know when she officially became a Canadian citizen. I told them her parents were not Canadian when she was born. I asked about the "British Subject" until January 1, 1947 concept and asked specifically how the citizenship worked with the Citizenship act 1947 transition. I explained it was important to know the official start date. I specifically asked when the citizenship became "active". The birth certificate of a person even before 1947 is the Canadian Citizenship document of the person, and the person was a Canadian citizen at birth even back then. The person on the phone put me on hold as he was not able to answer my questions and went and found out the answers. He restated my questions with specific answers, so I believe he was correct.

 

Harjeet, that doesn't sound correct, what the lawyer told you. The issue with Israel, I believe, was unique compared to issues of citizenship elsewhere.

I would consider speaking with another law professional before committing yourself to trying to prove you are correct to this lawyer.

If what he said were true, then a lot of us would be unable to reclaim our citizenship.

 

Hi Neumann

The email you gave me in regards to obtaining a marriage certificate. They never responded in reference to my request. But I did find another way of obtaining the certificate. Hopefully, if all goes well, I may have it by the end of next week. I will let you know. But I know that when my parents got married it stated there citizenship and it mentioned my grandparents citizenship with his as being German and hers as being Polish.
Whereas another couple of papers state his place of birth as being Poland. Something is fishy. Slowly things will fall into place.

 

Hello,

I woudl liek to recommend my lawyer - Piotrowski.

He charged me about 100 EURO for Polish birht certificate and 150 EURO for my Polish marriage certficiate.

This sum include all cost!!

He is now dealing with my children Polish citiznehsip. 400 EURO per person.

Maybe this looks like advertisment but Piotrowski help me very much with my Polish citizneship.

I was previous Charsky Client that for more then 3 years did nothnig!!Furthemore he cheated me that there are problems with Polish authorites. I had not received infos from him for more then 6 months...and then I found info that Charsky died. I called to his office. nobody could help.

They even shouted on me that I want information!!!

I am older men, and I was never threaten like that!

Ilan

 

Wow -- so Charsky has passed on? Well that explains why I never heard from his office; they probably don't want to take on any new clients. I'm sorry you had such a difficult situation with that office but congrats on getting everything settled finally!

On a separate note, after the lawyer I've been speaking with suggested researching the archives on the DP Camps where my grandparents were held, I decided to try to look into it myself. I came across this site: http://www.dpcamps.org/ -- it contains tons of contact information depending on the camp you are looking to get info on. I just found it all very interesting. There was an entire website dedicated to where my grandparents were and it was cool to see the pictures and hear the stories. I realize this isn't directly helpful but just in case anyone else is dealing with a similar situation as me (vague details of deceased grandparents), I thought this might be useful.

 

I got a letter from the Polish consulate and it specifically requests more information such as birth certificate in order to continue with confimation. They also would like more supporting general info such as old passport, military documents, school documents etc.

Anyway the letter is helpful because it includes the Vital Statistics website http://www.usc.pl and Polish National Archives http://www.archiwa.gov.pl. However, I can't read Polish and I have tried to navigate with google page translation but I can't really figure out how to do searches.

Has anyone searched on either of these sites? Can you offer any hints or tips?

 

Hi everyone,

I've been following this forum for a while. Just thought I'd let you know that I successfully obtained citizenship for my Mum, myself and sister in 14 months (instead of the usual 2yrs!), this was through the Australian consulate, not a lawyer. We got the letters last week. Not sure if this means waiting times are down or if we were just lucky. Don't want to get everyone's hopes up too much!

 

oz1,
Congrats! Great to hear another success story!!

 

Congrats oz1!

Did you apply together with your mum and siblings in one application(3 sets of paperwork)? Did you have to pay the application fee 3 times or was it considered one application?

 

Congrats! Did you already have all of your Polish documents on hand when you began attempting to get citizenship, or did you have to search for them, use archives, etc..?

 

Thanks ppl!!! It's a big relief after all the hard work.

We filled out 3 application forms and sets of paperwork (autobiography etc), but lodged it all together as one parcel with one set of supporting docs (birth certificates, papers etc), paid 3 application fees.

Had some docs already for my grandparents - naturalisation papers, parish birth and marriage certificates (apparently they aren't official ones), a temporary travel document they used to come to Australia (it wasn't a Polish passport), labor camp papers.

A historian/researcher helped me get additional supporting docs - shipping manifest and immigration/arrival papers from the national archives, grandparents birth and marriage certs, great-grandparents marriage cert, great-grandmother death cert from Poland.

Hope this helps you guys and good luck!

 

Wow that is awesome. So this means Poland does indeed accept non-Polish documents? That's a good thing because as of right now I have none!

 

It sounds like they were used as supporting docs, am I correct oz1? He at least had birth cert., marriage cert., death cert. and docs from the archives.

oz1, how did you find your researcher? Were they based in Poland?