Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Eastern Europe, The Soviet Union, Volume VI

360C.1121/5–146: Telegram

The Ambassador in Poland (Lane) to the Secretary of State

Warsaw, May 1, 1946.
[Received May 6—8:38 p.m.]

625. Following is translation text of Polish FonOff note dated April 27:

“In reply to note 323 of March 15, 1946 delivered by Your Excellency March 20³⁶ I have the honor to inform Your Excellency as follows:

From the time of the first intervention of the American Embassy concerning persons claiming the right to American citizenship and American citizens the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has registered 55 cases of arrest.

Of this number 13 persons have so far been released from prisons. Among the remainder persons only 6 had American passports while the remainder are persons who claim the right to American citizenship on the basis of a birth certificate. One of them, Edward Drozd, was arrested by the Soviet military authorities in December 1944.

The criteria of American legislation concerning citizenship based on jus soli while Polish legislation accepts jus sanguinis as basis for citizenship constitute a conflict in the legislation of the two states.

For the purpose of removing the conflict in legislation of various states concerning citizenship and in order to remedy the evil consequences emanating therefrom an international conference under the sponsorship of the League of Nations was called at The Hague in March, 1930. On April 12, 1930 this conference approved a convention concerning certain problems pertaining to citizenship laws. The convention was not signed by either the United States of America nor the USSR but due to the fact that it was signed by over 20 states including all other great powers it is considered an expression of international opinion and a definition of a binding customary international standard.

The convention first of all affirms that every state has the authority to determine in its legislation who is its citizen. This is an example of matters which according to paragraph 7 article 2 of the United Nations Charter are subject to the internal authority of the state. The convention states that this legislation should be accepted by other states as long as it is in accordance with international agreement, international custom and the generally recognized legal principles concerning citizenship. With this reservation every question concerning whether anyone as citizen of a given state should be decided in accordance with the legislations of that state. It is logical from this that a person who is the citizen of two or more countries may be recognized as a citizen by each of the states whose citizenship he possesses.

The Polish Delegation foresaw difficulties and succeeded in including in the convention article 4 which states that a state cannot carry out diplomatic protection on behalf of one of its citizens on the territory of and in relation to a state of which that person is also a citizen.

This means that each of two interested states has the right to consider a person of dual nationality on its territory as solely its citizen ignoring the fact that he is at the same time the citizen of another state. Further this second state has the same right on its territory in relation to a citizen of the first state.

Polish legislation has determined that Polish citizenship is acquired (1) by birth of parents who are Polish citizens (2) by proving right thereto, by regaining citizenship temporarily lost or in doubt, or adoption (3) by marriage (4) by naturalization (5) by accepting a public office or being accepted for military service in the Polish state if a contrary reservation has not been made.

In all cases of persons who claim the right to American citizenship and reside in Poland for a number of years the Polish authorities must conduct an investigation to verify whether the above circumstances exist which by proving undisputed Polish citizenship would thereby cause the loss of American citizenship by these persons from the point of view of Polish legislation.

Owing to the damaged condition of the country resulting from war activities and the destruction of archives of all sorts of which the Govt of the US of North America is undoubtedly aware, difficulties are encountered in assembling the necessary data to determine individual circumstance envisaged by the law concerning citizenship. These difficulties sometimes cause a delay of many months in processing a case. The American Embassy undoubtedly in an entirely different situation as regards the securing of essential documents in the US since it does not encounter any difficulties in this direction, also requires a correspondingly long time to secure them.

Certification of the sole fact of birth in the US in such a situation cannot exhaust the matter without determination by the Polish authorities whether circumstances exist which might possibly cause the loss of American citizenship and thereby prove Polish citizenship.

At the present moment this is the only possible method for determining the citizenship of interested persons in view of the basic conflict in the legislation of both states concerning citizenship.

With reference to permission to communicate with persons claiming the right to American citizenship and who are arrested I wish to inform Your Excellency that this matter has been adjusted as follows:

1. At the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the appropriate Polish authorities will present to each arrested person claiming the right to American citizenship a questionnaire to be filled out in duplicate. After being filled out one copy will be transmitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the American Embassy.

2. The questionnaire will be prepared in accordance with the enclosed specimen.

3. The American Embassy will receive all possible information and will be enabled to exercise protection within the limitations foreseen in regulations over persons whose American citizenship will be determined on the basis of the questionnaire.

Independently of the above individual cases when the American Embassy will be particularly interested in direct communication with the arrested persons claiming the right to American citizenship a meeting with him will be made possible.

I take this opportunity to inform Your Excellency that the majority of the persons claiming the right to Americian citizenship have been accused of anti-state and terroristic activity.

In summing up the above I would like to particularly underline that the delay in the handling of the above named individual cases is not always within the control of the appropriate authorities but is caused by force majeure that is in the majority of cases as I have already mentioned by destruction of essential archives by war activities.

In the light of such a situation the statement concerning the unusual treatment of American citizens by my Government mentioned in Your Excellency’s note cannot have a just basis.

I take this opportunity to again assure Your Excellency of my highest respect. Signed, Modzelewski.”³⁷

36. Ambassador Lane’s note of March 15 is not printed, but its substance is contained in the Department’s instructions in telegram 184, March 12, to Warsaw, p. 411.
37. Telegram 652, May 6, from Warsaw, summarized the views of the Embassy on this note as follows: “Implications of Polish Govt’s note are so broad that unqualified acceptance of Polish Govt’s position would in Embassy’s opinion stop US Govt from interceding in behalf of American nationals who may also possess Polish nationality and thus nullify some provisions of the Consular Treaty of 1031 as it pertains to rights of Americans while in Poland.” (360C.1121/5–646)