Restitution of Cultural Heritage Goods

In response to the ECPRD request, the Bureau of Research provided the requester with information on restitution of cultural heritage goods. According to the author, the return of cultural goods acquired from a foreign country during a war or colonization is regulated in the Polish Act on Restitution of National Cultural Goods, which governs the implementation of the Directive on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State. The Republic of Poland was requested by Germany to return certain cultural goods, confiscated after World War II. However these requests were turned down because the goods were acquired as a result of the change of state borders. Before the above-mentioned Act came into force, the Polish state had returned some cultural goods to other countries. The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has a special unit which deals with restitution of artworks and keeps the Catalogue of the War Losses - The Division for Looted Art.