There was a discussion concerning the land claims at Slovak Roots, a Yahoo group. Bill Tarkulich presented the following opinion:

As a direct descendant you should be aware that:
  1. Your share is most likely fractional: owned jointly with other heirs. You potentially could be sharing ownership with as many as 50 other people in Slovakia.  If these are your grandparents or great grandparents, then all their descendants (your siblings, aunts, uncles and their descendants) will also share in a proportional ownership.
  2. Your fraction could be as little as 1/256th or LESS due to hereditary succession laws (American-style "wills" are not customary.)
  3. Getting a group of joint owners to decide to do anything with the property is a Herculean effort.  This is one reason why we see abandoned and deteriorating property in rural Slovakia villages today.
  4. Joint share ownership  by any unknowns after this fall will pass to state ownership.  Do you really want to jointly own land with the state?
  5. Most of our immigrant ancestors came from small, rural villages.  Most of these land parcels are a few acres at the most.  Land values in these regions may only be US$100 per acre.  You share may be "worth" only a few dollars by the end of it all.
  6. Even if everyone can agree, there is no real market for these properties, consequentially, there are hardly any buyers.
  7. Most locals cannot afford to "buy out" each others shares.
I strongly believe that if you make a claim that you should in-turn release it to one or more of the families that live in Slovakia today.  It is their families who had to suffer through two world wars, poverty, communism, disease and difficult living.  In my opinion, they deserve the land share. Our ancestors escaped this, with no expectation of property ownership or in going back again.  We indeed have received much more than our Slovakia cousins ever have.

Please don't promulgate the stereotype of the "greedy American" whose only interest is in laying claim to the "family farm", which is many people's biggest fear. They have suffered as subjects to so many, now that they finally have their independence, we should support them.  Let's give something back.

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