Illustrative: A view of Tarnow, Poland (YouTube screenshot)
Poland’s Supreme Court ruled this week in favor of an Australian Jewish woman locked in battle with the Polish church over her family’s ancestral plot of land near Krakow, which she said was stolen by neighbors and handed over to the parish illegally after the Holocaust.
The court’s Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Rights on Monday upheld a six-year-old ruling in favor of Ann Drillich, who has been battling Polish religious authorities for years.
Drillich’s family had lived in Tarnow for centuries until the Nazi occupation forced them to leave to a ghetto, where they all died. However, Ann’s mother Blanka managed to hide with the neighboring Poetschke family for the duration of the war. Family scion Jerzy Poetschke was later honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.