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Polish citizenship by descent for families with Jewish ancestry
Say who in your family lost Polish citizenship and whether the next person in your line was born before or after: the tool shows confirmation or restoration.
Restoration or confirmation after a loss of Polish citizenship?
Through the person who lost it
Not eligible
| Route | None for you as of right |
| What remains | Restoration for the person who lost it |
| Published decision time | Not published |
A child born after the loss was not born Polish. Restoration applies to the person who lost citizenship and does not reach back to children born before it.
Polish citizenship by descent works the same way for Jewish families as for any other: Polish law has no separate route by religion or origin. What differs is history, because many Jewish families left Poland at moments when the law was harsh. Three situations come up. Prewar emigrants who naturalized in the United States before 1951 usually lost citizenship under the 1920 Act, together with children then under 18. People who left after the war could be deprived of citizenship by decision under the 1951 Act, which breaks the line. And those who left in 1968 and the following years often lost citizenship when they emigrated. For anyone who personally lost it before January 1, 1999, article 38 of the 2009 Act restores it on request. Restoration helps that person; descendants born after the loss rely on the ordinary confirmation rules instead.
Rules read and verdicts built by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How verdicts are built
Prewar emigrants and the 1920 Act
A Jewish ancestor who left Poland between 1920 and the Second World War was usually a Polish citizen when leaving. What happened next decides the case. Under the 1920 Act, acquiring a foreign citizenship ended Polish citizenship, and article 13 extended the loss to the wife and to children under 18. If your grandfather became a US citizen in 1938 and your father was born in New York in 1940, your father was never Polish. If your father was born in 1925 and was already an adult at the oath, he kept it. The same filter applies to everyone, and the main Polish page explains it with a table.
Ancestors who left before 1920, from the Russian, Austrian or German partitions, raise a different problem: there was no Polish citizenship yet. Most of them never became Polish citizens, unless they returned to the new state.
Survivors and postwar departures
For a survivor who stayed in Poland after 1945 and left later, the 1951 Act is the reference. It allowed the state to deprive a Pole living abroad of citizenship, for example for leaving illegally after May 9, 1945, refusing to return when called, or evading military duty. A deprivation decision ends citizenship from that day, and a child born afterwards is not Polish through that parent. Deprivation required a decision, though: leaving alone did not do it. A survivor who emigrated legally, kept a Polish passport and naturalized in the US after 1951 without a Polish permit usually stayed Polish, and children born later were born Polish.
The 1968 departures
After the political campaign of March 1968, thousands of Polish Jews left the country. Many lost Polish citizenship when they emigrated, under the citizenship law of 1962. Article 38 of the 2009 Act now restores citizenship to a person who lost it before January 1, 1999 under article 13, 14 or 15 of the 1962 Act, or under the 1920 and 1951 Acts. The text says the citizenship "przywraca się", is restored, on that person's application. Exclusions concern voluntary service in Axis forces, Axis public office and acts against Poland.
For descendants, the key is the birth date. A child born in Poland before the parents lost citizenship was born Polish; the voivode then checks whether the loss extended to that child. A child born abroad after the loss was not born Polish, and the restoration of a parent does not change that. Children born after a parent's restoration are Polish at birth under the ordinary rule. A family with several branches may therefore end up with one restored parent, one child who needs a confirmation decision and another with no claim at all, so test each person separately.
Records for Jewish lines
The documents are those of any confirmation file: Polish birth and marriage records, a prewar passport or ID, a military booklet, then the US records of each generation with apostilles and sworn Polish translations, as the consulate lists. For 1968 emigrants, the travel document issued on departure is often the most useful piece. Civil records for prewar Jewish communities may sit in Polish state archives. The document checklist covers the US side, and the cost calculator estimates the total. The consular fee for a confirmation request is $118.
If Poland does not work for your family, the overview of second citizenship routes compares other countries. You can also run your whole tree through the family tree checker.