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Most Polish citizenship claims do not fail for lack of a Polish ancestor. They fail because that ancestor had already ceased to be Polish by the time the next generation was born. Everything therefore turns on a single question: was the chain of citizenship broken before your parent or grandparent was born? Here are the breaks the Polish authorities look for, period by period.<\/p>\n
Poland applies ius sanguinis<\/strong>: citizenship passes by descent, with no residence or language requirement. The procedure known as confirmation of Polish citizenship (potwierdzenie posiadania obywatelstwa polskiego)<\/strong>, governed by the Act of 2 April 2009 on Polish citizenship (ustawa o obywatelstwie polskim<\/em>), creates nothing: it records a right that already exists.<\/p>\n That distinction is decisive. The authority does not ask whether the applicant deserves citizenship, but whether the ancestor still held it on the day the next generation was born. A single break, at any link, brings down everything that follows.<\/p>\n Poland first legislated on citizenship in the Act of 20 January 1920 (ustawa o obywatelstwie Pa\u0144stwa Polskiego)<\/strong>, whose grounds of loss were unusually broad. Under its Article 11, Polish citizenship was lost by a person who:<\/p>\n These rules hit hardest the families who left before 1951 \u2014 and they are the single most common reason a claim collapses. A grandfather who served in a foreign army, or joined a foreign administration, could lose his Polish citizenship without any notice ever being served on him. Under certain conditions the loss extended to his wife and minor children, wiping out an entire branch at once.<\/p>\n A second difficulty belongs to this period: until the 1951 Act, citizenship passed as a rule through the father<\/strong> for a child born in wedlock, the mother transmitting only in limited cases. A maternal Polish line therefore has to be assessed against the year of birth before anything else is assumed.<\/p>\n The Act of 8 January 1951<\/strong>, in force from 19 January 1951, reversed the logic: losing Polish citizenship now required a permission to change citizenship (zezwolenie na zmian\u0119 obywatelstwa)<\/strong> issued by the Polish authorities. No permission, no loss \u2014 even where a foreign citizenship had been acquired.<\/p>\n In practice, many families who arrived in Israel after 1958, and who assumed the Polish line was closed, may still hold the right. Each file nonetheless has to be verified individually, since a genuine individual permission may exist in a given case.<\/p>\n The Act of 15 February 1962<\/strong>, and then the Act of 2 April 2009 now in force, progressively reduced the grounds of loss. The current position is straightforward: Polish citizenship is lost only by voluntary renunciation (zrzeczenie si\u0119 obywatelstwa polskiego)<\/strong> accepted by the President of the Republic of Poland. Dual citizenship \u2014 Israeli, American, French or otherwise \u2014 is not in itself an obstacle.<\/p>\n For recent generations the difficulty is therefore no longer legal but evidential: a complete and internally consistent chain of civil status records has to be reconstructed.<\/p>\n The burden of proof lies entirely with the applicant. In practice the file must establish two separate things:<\/p>\n The application is examined by the competent voivode (wojewoda)<\/strong> \u2014 frequently the Mazovian voivode for applicants living outside Poland. An adverse decision opens an administrative appeal to the competent minister, and then judicial review before the administrative courts. Timescales vary considerably with the depth of archival research required, and no serious estimate can be given before the file has been analysed.<\/p>\n A Polish citizenship file is not a genealogy project. It is a legal demonstration, period by period, that no ground of loss ever operated. Which statute governed the decisive date, what evidence will be expected, how to meet an objection based on a collective resolution \u2014 these questions decide the outcome long before the file is lodged.<\/p>\n With this in mind, the Law Firm ABITBOL & ASSOCIES assists its clients at every stage of preparing and following up an application for confirmation of Polish citizenship. Our lawyers make sure that your interests are protected and that every step is taken safely.<\/strong><\/p>\n 13 Av Hubert Germain \u2013 Paris 16\u1d49 13 rue Shimon ben Shetah, 9414713, J\u00e9rusalemII. Before 1951: foreign military service and foreign public office<\/h3>\n
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III. 1951 to 1962: permission to change citizenship<\/h3>\n
IV. After 1962: loss becomes exceptional<\/h3>\n
V. What this means when the file is assembled<\/h3>\n
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Conclusion \u2013 Why work with a lawyer on a Polish citizenship claim?<\/h3>\n
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