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The Week in Germany: Current Affairs March 20, 2008 German Cabinet Gives go-ahead for new Center of Expellees
A new center dedicated to expulsions in Europe is another example of how Germany is dealing more openly with the suffering of its citizens during and after World War II. To be opened in Berlin, the documentation center examines what Bernd Neumann, Germany's secretary of state for cultural affairs, called "a painful chapter in German and European history." The German federal cabinet gave the go-ahead on Wednesday (March 19) for the 30-million-euro ($46 million) project intended as a "visible symbol against flight and expulsions." At the heart of the scheme is a permanent exhibition recalling the expulsion of millions of Germans from Eastern Europe during the confusion immediately after the end of war. It will detail the personal experiences of some of the 14 million Germans forced to leave their homes by the Polish and Czech governments in reprisal for Nazi aggression. In addition, there will be documentation about other people whose expulsion was perpetrated by Germans, such as the 1.5 million Poles forced to flee Soviet-annexed eastern Poland after the war. Both Poland and the neighbouring Czech Republic had feared the center would focus on the more than 1 million Germans who died during the exodus and paper over Germany's responsibility for the war. But its planners say Nazi crimes committed in the two countries as well as in Central Europe and the Soviet Union will also be "sufficiently documented." More than 60 years after the end of the war, the project is intended to foster reconciliation while keeping alive the memory of those who suffered as a result of expulsion. The scheme had burdened Polish-German relations since it was first proposed in 2000 by the League of Expellees, which represents around two million displaced Germans and their descendants. Poland dropped its long-standing objections after liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk took over from Jaroslaw Kaczynski last November. The final obstacles were ironed out last month when Neumann met with Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor entrusted by Tusk with the task of improving relations with Germany. Nazi German forces invaded Poland in September 1939, triggering World
War II. After Germany's defeat, Poland's borders were redrawn and shifted
west, causing many Germans to flee. (dpa) Links: Bund der Vertriebenen (Federation of Expellees - in German) GermanORIGINality.com (interactive German heritage and travel site) |
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