Germany’s failure to pay World War 2 reparations to Poland is not a way to build peace, Polish President Karol Nawrocki said on January 27 during ceremonies marking the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.

“Germany has still not paid Poland reparations for the evil of the Second World War. This is not how a world of peace is built,” Nawrocki said. 

Nawrocki also argued that the reckoning with German responsibility did not end in 1945. “Only 15% of the perpetrators from German concentration camps were held accountable for the murders that took place here,” Nawrocki said. 

“For many years, the world turned its head away from this terrible tragedy and from responsibility for what happened in Auschwitz. After 1945 we remembered the victims, but we forgot the perpetrators,” Nawrocki also said.

The former camp, now a museum and a UNESCO World Heritage site, has become a global symbol of the Holocaust and Nazi crimes.

“Auschwitz today is a symbol and proof of bestiality, barbarity and a National Socialist ideology that found its home in a specific state, namely Germany,” Nawrocki also said. 

“Eternal memory to the victims of the Holocaust, to the Jews who were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp, representatives of one nation and citizens of many states, including my homeland, the Republic of Poland,” Nawrocki said.

Returning to the issue of reparations, the president said Germany remained obliged to compensate Poland for wartime losses. “For every crime and every war one simply has to pay and apologise. Only then will we be able to feel that we have fulfilled our contemporary duty,” Nawrocki said.

The demand echoes earlier statements by Nawrocki, who has repeatedly argued that settling the reparations issue is necessary for relations between Poland and Germany to be based on truth and partnership. 

Germany has consistently rejected negotiations, stating repeatedly that the reparations question was closed. 

More recently, Berlin has offered support for surviving victims of the war and the construction of a memorial in the German capital, without making financial commitments. 

The Polish government, which opposes Nawrocki, considers the reparations claim morally justified but legally infeasible. The government has still declared political support for Nawrocki’s reparations push.

The issue has strong backing among Polish voters. In a September 2025 survey conducted by SW Research for the weekly magazine Wprost, 55.2% of respondents said Poland should demand war reparations from Germany. A further 25.4% opposed such a move, while 19.4% said they were undecided.

Poland formally raised the issue in 2022, when Warsaw sent a diplomatic note to Berlin demanding more than €1.4tn in compensation for wartime losses, based on a report prepared under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Poland suffered more than five years of occupation during the war, losing 6mn citizens, including nearly its entire Jewish population of 3mn, and vast amounts of cultural and material heritage.