Leaving Poland Before 1951 or in 1968: Was Polish Citizenship Really Lost?

In families whose roots lie in pre-war Poland, one belief travels down the generations along with the photographs: “when they left, they lost their Polish citizenship.” That belief stops a great many applications that would have succeeded. Under Polish law, loss of citizenship is never presumed — it has to follow from a specific legal act, taken under the statute that was in force on the day the family left.

I. The only real question: which statute applied on the date of departure?

Polish citizenship is always assessed under the law applicable at the time of the relevant event — birth, marriage, emigration, acquisition of another nationality. This is the principle the Polish administrative courts restate whenever they review a voivode’s decision. Three regimes followed one another:

• the Act of 20 January 1920, the first citizenship statute of the reunified Polish State, applicable until January 1951;
• the Act of 8 January 1951 on Polish citizenship (ustawa o obywatelstwie polskim), which entered into force on the day of its publication (art. 19);
• the Act of 15 February 1962, which entered into force six months after publication (art. 21) and governed matters until the Act of 2 April 2009 now in force.

A departure in 1947, a departure in 1958 and a departure in 1968 are therefore governed by different statutes and different conditions of loss. Establishing which one applies is the first step in any file.

II. Departures before 1951: the 1951 Act did not erase an emigrant’s citizenship

This is the most widespread misunderstanding. The Act of 8 January 1951 redefined who was a Polish citizen as at its entry into force: article 2 recognises as citizens those who held Polish citizenship under the previously applicable rules. It did not make that recognition conditional on residence in Poland.

Its article 4 does set out an exclusion, but a narrow one: a person who held Polish citizenship on 31 August 1939 is not a citizen if they permanently reside abroad and fall within one of only three categories — having acquired the citizenship of another State as a consequence of the change of Poland’s borders; being of Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian nationality; or being of German nationality.

That list is exhaustive. Jewish families who left Poland between 1945 and January 1951, in particular for Mandatory Palestine and then Israel, do not appear in it as such. Emigrating before 1951, and even settling abroad permanently, did not in itself bring about the loss of Polish citizenship.

III. Acquiring another citizenship was not enough: permission was required

The 1951 Act adds the decisive element. Its article 11 provides that a Polish citizen may acquire a foreign citizenship only after obtaining permission to change citizenship (zezwolenie na zmianę obywatelstwa) from the Polish authority — and it is acquisition carried out in accordance with those provisions that brings about the loss of Polish citizenship.

In other words: becoming an Israeli, American, Canadian, British or French citizen without prior Polish permission did not cause the loss of Polish citizenship. The Act of 15 February 1962 kept the same architecture: loss through change of citizenship presupposed the permission of the competent Polish organ (art. 13), the Council of State (Rada Państwa) being the body empowered to grant it (art. 16). That Act also provided for a separate procedure of deprivation of citizenship (pozbawienie obywatelstwa) in article 15, aimed in particular at a person residing abroad who had left the country unlawfully or refused to return.

IV. 1968: what the “travel document” proves, and what it does not

Those forced out of Poland after the antisemitic campaign of 1968 were very often issued a one-way travel document stating that the holder was not a Polish citizen. Many families keep it as the proof that citizenship was lost.

Legally, the question is a different one: is there, for that individual, an act granting permission to change citizenship, issued by the competent authority? A travel document, an administrative annotation or a printed formula is not, in itself, that decision. Polish courts know the debate well in connection with Council of State resolution no. 5/58 of 23 January 1958, which concerned departures to Israel: the dominant line of the administrative courts has been that a collective authorisation cannot stand in for an individual decision, and that absent an act addressed to a specific person, citizenship was not lost. That line is not uniform and each file must be assessed on its own facts, but it has opened the way to a very large number of citizenship confirmations.

V. Rebuilding the evidence: Polish archives, Israeli and Western records

A file of this kind is built on documents, not on family narrative. It usually means assembling:

• evidence that the ancestor held Polish citizenship before leaving — population registers, passport files, civil-status records, military papers, searches in the Polish State Archives, the Central Archives of Modern Records (AAN) or the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN);
• evidence that no act of loss exists: targeted searches for any permission to change citizenship or any deprivation decision;
• the complete chain of descent down to the applicant, established through Israeli, French, American or other civil-status records, translated and legalised as the Polish procedure requires.

The application for confirmation of possession of Polish citizenship (potwierdzenie posiadania obywatelstwa polskiego) is made to the voivode competent for the place of residence; where there is no such place in Poland, the Mazovian Voivode (Wojewoda Mazowiecki) decides (art. 55 of the Act of 2 April 2009). A person residing outside Poland may file it through the competent consul, who forwards it (art. 57).

Conclusion – Why work with a lawyer on Polish citizenship?

These cases are won or lost on one precise point of law: identifying the statute applicable on the date of departure, then demonstrating that no act of loss was ever taken. It is work of legal characterisation and archival reconstruction, often across three generations and three countries. ABITBOL & ASSOCIES assists clients in assembling and following through on these files, working with correspondents in Poland for local procedural steps, so that every document produced genuinely serves the argument.

It is in this spirit that ABITBOL & ASSOCIES, drawing on its experience in citizenship law and archival files, assists its clients at every stage of reconstructing and proving their entitlement to Polish citizenship. Our lawyers make sure your interests are protected and that each step is taken in complete safety.