If you left Poland while it was under Communism, could you go back?

My friend told me that if you left Poland while it was under Communism to go to university in another country, you weren't able to return. Is this true?

Most certainly not. You can get your passport back at any embassy.

It's false

oops, i misread that
anyway in both cases wrong ;)

It's not true that you were not able to, but you might well not want to.

I believe there was a sneaky kind of tax brought in at one point, where if you were the holder of a foreign passport but originally a Polish citizen, you could enter the country but couldn't leave until you pruchased a new Polish one.

Where did you get that one from?

It's not true that you were not able to, but you might well not want to.

Sometimes you couldn't come back because the government took your passport.That was the case with some Jews.They got "one way ticket".The same case was with some ppl that emigrated to Germany(although I'm not sure if it wasn't the Germans that asked you to give away your Polish citizenship).

But I never heard about a person that couldn't come back only because they were studying abroad.

It's actually that Polish citizens are only permitted to identify themselves to Polish officials by use of Polish documents. So if you qualify for a Polish passport, you must use a Polish passport when entering and leaving Poland.

When was that?
Post war? Socialist era? Post socialist? After 2000?

Socialist.

Germans didnt care about dual citizenship until 9/11 and the BS that followed.
On the other hand my parents had no problems with getting a konsularny "back" either, although that was in the early 90ties.

I'm not quite sure how it was.From my uncle story there were two options:
-you got German citizenship in Poland and then went to Germany (that's when you lost your Polish citizenship)
-you went to Germany and applied for German citizenship there (then no-one cared about your Polish citizenship)

My cousins fled Poland with their family, while they were merely children. They're now in their thirties. They go back to visit our relatives, approximately every other year.

I hadnt thought of that.

Germans were smart. All they asked was (more or less) do you feel German based on (whatever)..... Once them Poles (aka German descendants) said "yes" (in WRITING) they enjoyed the privileges endowed upon them. No one after that would willingly renege on that, obviously. It would have been too costly to give back all that money back. And so be it.

Ah, got it slightly wrong. It applied to people born outside of Poland: polonia.wikia.com/wiki/Passport_trap

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_nationality_law