Poland puts Berlin's WWII bill at 440 billion euros

Polish victims of World War II should be able to claim 440 billion euros ($543 billion) from Germany in World War II damages, the head of a parliamentary commission said Thursday.

Arkadiusz Mularczyk of the nationalist ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) based the figure, which the German government rejects, on a 1990 study which found that "there were 13.32 million direct victims of Nazi Germany in Poland.

That figure takes into account deportees, labour and concentration camp prisoners, civilians left maimed during that period, widows, orphans and those who suffered from illnesses which broke out under Nazi occupation and during the conflict.