MINELRES: RFE/RL: Poland: The idea of a museum of German expellees revives

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: RFE/RL List Manager <listmanager@list.rferl.org>


RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
________________________________________________________
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report
Vol. 5, No. 31, 26 August 2003

A Survey of Developments in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine by the
Regional Specialists of RFE/RL's Newsline Team


POLAND

DISCUSSION ABOUT CENTER AGAINST EXPULSIONS REVIVES 

The idea of a museum commemorating the fate of millions of Germans who
were expelled, or rather forced to resettle, at the end of World War II
from Central and Eastern Europe was raised by Erika Steinbach, who leads
the League of Expelled Germans (Bund der Vertriebenen). Erika Steinbach
and Peter Glotz, who are members of the German parliament, established
in 2000 a special foundation aimed at creating the museum.

Debate around the idea started after Social Democratic Party deputy
Marcus Meckel said last year that instead of a national museum in
Berlin, a European Center Against Expulsions (Zentrum gegen Vertreibung)
should be built in Wroclaw, Poland (see "RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and
Ukraine Report," 21 May 2002). Meckel pointed out that the city could be
a perfect location for the center as its German citizens were deported
during World War II and then Wroclaw was repopulated by Poles from
Poland's former eastern territories, mainly Lwow (Lviv in today's
Ukraine). Consequently, Wroclaw is a living symbol of expulsions.

The debate was put aside during the Polish and Czech referenda on
joining the EU. Yet, since last June there has been an increase in the
temperature of the now European-wide discussion, with some harsh words
being uttered. Generally, there is agreement in Germany about the
necessity of establishing the center, yet its nature and location remain
subject to argument.

Erika Steinbach claims that apart from the expulsion of Germans, the
center will also present the suffering of other nations. Nevertheless, a
number of European intellectuals and politicians are afraid that the
center will contribute to projecting a relativistic view of the
Holocaust, as its museum is already located in Berlin. They underline
the contradiction in depicting the Germans as both war criminals and war
victims. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that "locating the museum in
Berlin might lead to putting emphasis on German sufferings, which will
conceal the historical reasons of the forced resettlements and will
belittle the torments of other nations." On the other hand, Bavarian
Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber argued that "the place for a museum
showing the dreadful fate of expelled Germans is in Berlin."

Some widely known German and Polish intellectuals and politicians,
including Guenter Grass, Bronislaw Geremek, Jan Nowak-Jezioranski,
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and others, have recently signed an appeal
regarding the Center Against Expulsions, Forced Resettlements, and
Deportations, in which they stressed that the center should commemorate
the peoples expelled during the entire span of the 20th century, not
only Germans or Poles. In this shape, they argued, the center will unite
rather than divide.
         
But surprising statements have also been made, such as that by Thomas
Schmidt, a journalist with the German daily "Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung." According to him, the museum should be a place of mourning for
the Germans since "just as the Holocaust wiped out Jewish culture from
Central-Eastern Europe, with the expulsions of the German population a
certain cultural tradition disappeared." Schmidt forgets, though, that
this German tradition in Poland resulted in part from German invasions
of Poland and from more than 120 years of German occupation of northern
and western Polish territories following the partition of Poland at the
end of the 18th century. Moreover, the Germans, with their undoubtedly
rich culture, arguably would have stayed in Poland had it not been for
World War II unleashed by the Third Reich in order to, among other goals
pursued by the Nazis, deprive Poland of its own culture.

The editor in chief of the "Die Zeit" weekly commented: "It would be
better to locate a European monument to expulsions in Srebrenica or in
Moscow. The Czechs and Poles were amateurs in comparison with Stalin,
who expelled and exterminated millions of victims." On the other hand,
some Polish right-wing Catholic politicians, such as Antoni Macierewicz
from the League of Polish Families, claim that the center in Wroclaw
would be an "antinational provocation" intended to "start anew the
discussion about the Polish ownership rights to the northern and western
lands." Such statements definitely will not facilitate the debate. Also,
the location for the center proposed by Erika Steinbach and her
colleagues is fairly controversial. Namely, she would like to locate the
Center Against Expulsions in a wartime air-raid bunker.

The opposition to building the center in Berlin does not reflect a
"distrust towards the German nation," as is argued by Herbert Hupka, a
veteran activist among the expelled Germans. World War II was a
traumatic experience from which most European nations suffered and the
Germans were not the only ones to blame. Therefore, the above-mentioned
appeal of European intellectuals and politicians over the Center Against
Expulsions, Forced Resettlements, and Deportations seems to strike an
extremely important note in asserting that "from the beginning the idea
of creating the center should be a fruit of European cooperation. The
partners should also decide together about the headquarters of the
institution and its sources of financing and structure." A museum
created in this way, they add, would be an "important sign of European
reconciliation and mutual understanding."

(This report was written by Bartosz Stefanczyk, a student of
international relations at the Warsaw School of Economics and of history
at the Warsaw University.)

.....................

*********************************************************
Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.

"RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" is prepared by Jan
Maksymiuk on the basis of a variety of sources including reporting by
"RFE/RL Newsline" and RFE/RL's broadcast services. It is distributed
every Tuesday.

Direct comments to Jan Maksymiuk at maksymiukj@rferl.org. 
For information on reprints, see:
http://www.rferl.org/requests/
Back issues are online at http://www.rferl.org/pbureport/

Technical queries should be e-mailed to: iteam@rferl.org

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE
Send an e-mail to pbureport-subscribe@list.rferl.org

HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE
Send an e-mail to pbureport-unsubscribe@list.rferl.org
_______________________________________________________
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC