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GERMAN WW2 EXPELLEES EXHIBITION ANGERS POLES
Expatica, Netherlands
News And Information For Expats
In Germany - 19 September 2006
The issue of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after WW2 is
controversial, and a new exhibition in Berlin has received heated
criticism from Poland.
Clive Freeman visits 'Forced Paths.'
The exhibition documents the fates of German expellees from
Eastern Europe Wilfried Rogasch stands in the foyer of Berlin's
Kronprinzenpalais shaking his head in disbelief at the hostile
reactions in Poland to the exhibition he has organised.
Entitled "Erzwungene Wege - Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des
20. Jahrhunderts" ("Forced Paths - Flight and Expulsion in Europe
During the 20th Century"), the exhibition fills three rooms of the
newly revamped Palais building on Berlin's landmark street Unten
den Linden, and depicts the plight of millions of European refugees,
among them many Germans, who either fled or were expelled from their
homes at the end of World War II.
In the biggest hall, nine mass expulsion episodes get pin-pointed,
ranging from the Armenian massacres in 1915 to the German persecution
of the Jews between 1933-45, and the ethnic cleansing terror in
Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s.
Under fire
When it opened on 11 August, the Polish government and a large section
of the Polish media were quick to criticise it.
I am disappointed. I saw myself as a bridge-builder between Germany and
Poland, not as a trouble-maker. - exhibition organiser Wilfried Rogasch
"All expulsions and flights linked to the Second World War and post-war
resettlements are a painful and dramatic consequence of Hitler's
attack on Poland and Europe. This must be remembered," Archbishop
Jozef Michalik, chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference, said.
He added that it must be kept in mind that German expellees' leader
Erika Steinbach herself was born in a town near Gdansk in Nazi-occupied
Poland as the daughter of a soldier who willingly served in Adolf
Hitler's Nazi army.
Daniel Pawlowicz, an MP for the nationalist League of Polish Families
(LPR), urged Poland's foreign ministry to "react strongly" to the
exhibition, saying its treatment of ethnic German expellees falsified
history. The LPR is the junior partner in Poland's governing coalition.
Pawlowicz added that the Polish government must always react in
similar cases and "show the lines" that Germans may not cross.
Warsaw's mayor Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz even cancelled plans to visit
Berlin, telling Poland's TVN 24 news channel that his visit to Berlin
could be misinterpreted in Poland and exploited.
Judged too soon
However Rogasch told Deutsche Presse-Agentur he was surprised by the
"hysterical reaction" in Poland.
"Even without seeing the contents of the show the Polish premier,
foreign minister and culture minister had decided it was, anti-Polish,"
he said.
At the heart of the current dispute is a campaign spearheaded by German
expellee groups aimed at creating a centre in Berlin remembering the
mass expulsions of 12-14 million ethnic Germans from several countries
of Eastern Europe after World War 11.
Rogasch frankly concedes that the Berlin exhibition, which lasts for
three months, is the "first step towards a permanent documentation
centre here in Berlin."
There has been a fiery debate over such plans, with German Nobel
Literature Prize winner Guenter Grass - himself now in the news over
his admission he was a teenage member of the wartime Waffen SS -
warning three years ago that the creation of a centre in Berlin would
open old wounds with Germany's eastern neighbours.
Returned loans
All expulsions and flights linked to the Second World War and post-war
resettlements are a painful and dramatic consequence of Hitler's attack
on Poland and Europe. This must be remembered. - Polish archbishop
Jozef Michalik As a result of the controversy caused by the current
exhibition, Rogasch said he had returned several exhibition art loans
back to Poland in order, as he put it, to "avoid curators there any
possible embarrassment."
He added: "It was my decision. They did not ask that l should do
so. So, yes, I am disappointed. I saw myself as a bridge-builder
between Germany and Poland, not as a trouble-maker."
The curator also praised several Polish museums for "standing firm"
during a trying period.
"Pressure has been put on these institutions by the (Polish)
government, and by a large proportion of the Polish press," he claimed.
"I find this quite outrageous in a country which belongs to the
European Union, and in which scientific and cultural institutions
should be independent of the prevailing government.
"We are all members of the International Council of Museums, which
is a part of UNESCO. As such, museums should be able to decide freely
with whom they co-operate and to whom they send loans.
Traumatic experiences
What is your opinion of 'Forced Paths'? Write to feedback
@expatica.com.Rogasch says while the Berlin exhibition involves
the fate of 12- 14 million German refugees who either fled or were
ousted from their homes in Poland, Czechoslovakia and several other
countries in eastern Europe after World War II, it also clearly
defines the traumatic experiences of millions of other expellees from
other countries.
Supporters of the centre, like German Expellees' leader Erika
Steinbach, who is a CDU deputy, argue that it would serve as a warning
against future expulsions.
To its advocates, the centre is deemed a natural development, an effort
to remember and understand an often forgotten fact: that, in the two
years after Germany's World War II defeat in 1945, millions of ethnic
Germans were forced to leave countries where they and their ancestors
had lived, in some cases for centuries, and resettle in Germany itself.
Unease
But in Poland, such talk provokes considerable uneasiness. Most
critics in Poland worry the planned Berlin centre could be misused by
historical revisionists to marginalize or cast aside Nazi Germany's
responsibility for the colossal civilian suffering which occurred
during the Second World War.
Wladslaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and former Polish foreign
minister argues that if a centre is created then it should be located
in Wroclaw, which prior to World War II was for hundreds of years
the German city of Breslau.
Wroclaw was almost entirely destroyed during the war, when it was
bombarded and eventually over-run by Soviet troops after a desperate
14 week German defence that lasted until four days after the fall of
Berlin in the spring of 1945.
Subsequently it became a classic "refugee city." Those who settled in
Wroclaw after the war were Polish refugees from the eastern city of
Lvov, which at the end of World War II became Soviet Ukraine's Lviv,
where mainly ethnic Ukrainians resettled.
Documenting history
Warsaw mayor cancels Berlin trip over refugee exhibition Polish
archbishop criticises Berlin exhibition Poland demands return of bell
from exhibition Rogasch, who has made numerous visits to museums
in Poland in recent years for talks with fellow curators, insists
that Germany has since the 1939-45 conflict worked painstakingly at
documenting the "outrageous criminal aspects of Germany's history."
"Now," he says, "this country has every right to focus on groups
whose German members were also victims 60 years ago. Now they are
in their 70s or 80s. Then, they were children. So they would neither
have voted for Hitler or known anything about the concentration camps."
"We cannot deny such groups their personal right to remember that
they were victims - victims of Nazi dictatorship and also of Stalinist
expansionism."
Expatica, Netherlands
News And Information For Expats
In Germany - 19 September 2006
The issue of Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after WW2 is
controversial, and a new exhibition in Berlin has received heated
criticism from Poland.
Clive Freeman visits 'Forced Paths.'
The exhibition documents the fates of German expellees from
Eastern Europe Wilfried Rogasch stands in the foyer of Berlin's
Kronprinzenpalais shaking his head in disbelief at the hostile
reactions in Poland to the exhibition he has organised.
Entitled "Erzwungene Wege - Flucht und Vertreibung im Europa des
20. Jahrhunderts" ("Forced Paths - Flight and Expulsion in Europe
During the 20th Century"), the exhibition fills three rooms of the
newly revamped Palais building on Berlin's landmark street Unten
den Linden, and depicts the plight of millions of European refugees,
among them many Germans, who either fled or were expelled from their
homes at the end of World War II.
In the biggest hall, nine mass expulsion episodes get pin-pointed,
ranging from the Armenian massacres in 1915 to the German persecution
of the Jews between 1933-45, and the ethnic cleansing terror in
Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s.
Under fire
When it opened on 11 August, the Polish government and a large section
of the Polish media were quick to criticise it.
I am disappointed. I saw myself as a bridge-builder between Germany and
Poland, not as a trouble-maker. - exhibition organiser Wilfried Rogasch
"All expulsions and flights linked to the Second World War and post-war
resettlements are a painful and dramatic consequence of Hitler's
attack on Poland and Europe. This must be remembered," Archbishop
Jozef Michalik, chairman of the Polish Episcopal Conference, said.
He added that it must be kept in mind that German expellees' leader
Erika Steinbach herself was born in a town near Gdansk in Nazi-occupied
Poland as the daughter of a soldier who willingly served in Adolf
Hitler's Nazi army.
Daniel Pawlowicz, an MP for the nationalist League of Polish Families
(LPR), urged Poland's foreign ministry to "react strongly" to the
exhibition, saying its treatment of ethnic German expellees falsified
history. The LPR is the junior partner in Poland's governing coalition.
Pawlowicz added that the Polish government must always react in
similar cases and "show the lines" that Germans may not cross.
Warsaw's mayor Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz even cancelled plans to visit
Berlin, telling Poland's TVN 24 news channel that his visit to Berlin
could be misinterpreted in Poland and exploited.
Judged too soon
However Rogasch told Deutsche Presse-Agentur he was surprised by the
"hysterical reaction" in Poland.
"Even without seeing the contents of the show the Polish premier,
foreign minister and culture minister had decided it was, anti-Polish,"
he said.
At the heart of the current dispute is a campaign spearheaded by German
expellee groups aimed at creating a centre in Berlin remembering the
mass expulsions of 12-14 million ethnic Germans from several countries
of Eastern Europe after World War 11.
Rogasch frankly concedes that the Berlin exhibition, which lasts for
three months, is the "first step towards a permanent documentation
centre here in Berlin."
There has been a fiery debate over such plans, with German Nobel
Literature Prize winner Guenter Grass - himself now in the news over
his admission he was a teenage member of the wartime Waffen SS -
warning three years ago that the creation of a centre in Berlin would
open old wounds with Germany's eastern neighbours.
Returned loans
All expulsions and flights linked to the Second World War and post-war
resettlements are a painful and dramatic consequence of Hitler's attack
on Poland and Europe. This must be remembered. - Polish archbishop
Jozef Michalik As a result of the controversy caused by the current
exhibition, Rogasch said he had returned several exhibition art loans
back to Poland in order, as he put it, to "avoid curators there any
possible embarrassment."
He added: "It was my decision. They did not ask that l should do
so. So, yes, I am disappointed. I saw myself as a bridge-builder
between Germany and Poland, not as a trouble-maker."
The curator also praised several Polish museums for "standing firm"
during a trying period.
"Pressure has been put on these institutions by the (Polish)
government, and by a large proportion of the Polish press," he claimed.
"I find this quite outrageous in a country which belongs to the
European Union, and in which scientific and cultural institutions
should be independent of the prevailing government.
"We are all members of the International Council of Museums, which
is a part of UNESCO. As such, museums should be able to decide freely
with whom they co-operate and to whom they send loans.
Traumatic experiences
What is your opinion of 'Forced Paths'? Write to feedback
@expatica.com.Rogasch says while the Berlin exhibition involves
the fate of 12- 14 million German refugees who either fled or were
ousted from their homes in Poland, Czechoslovakia and several other
countries in eastern Europe after World War II, it also clearly
defines the traumatic experiences of millions of other expellees from
other countries.
Supporters of the centre, like German Expellees' leader Erika
Steinbach, who is a CDU deputy, argue that it would serve as a warning
against future expulsions.
To its advocates, the centre is deemed a natural development, an effort
to remember and understand an often forgotten fact: that, in the two
years after Germany's World War II defeat in 1945, millions of ethnic
Germans were forced to leave countries where they and their ancestors
had lived, in some cases for centuries, and resettle in Germany itself.
Unease
But in Poland, such talk provokes considerable uneasiness. Most
critics in Poland worry the planned Berlin centre could be misused by
historical revisionists to marginalize or cast aside Nazi Germany's
responsibility for the colossal civilian suffering which occurred
during the Second World War.
Wladslaw Bartoszewski, an Auschwitz survivor and former Polish foreign
minister argues that if a centre is created then it should be located
in Wroclaw, which prior to World War II was for hundreds of years
the German city of Breslau.
Wroclaw was almost entirely destroyed during the war, when it was
bombarded and eventually over-run by Soviet troops after a desperate
14 week German defence that lasted until four days after the fall of
Berlin in the spring of 1945.
Subsequently it became a classic "refugee city." Those who settled in
Wroclaw after the war were Polish refugees from the eastern city of
Lvov, which at the end of World War II became Soviet Ukraine's Lviv,
where mainly ethnic Ukrainians resettled.
Documenting history
Warsaw mayor cancels Berlin trip over refugee exhibition Polish
archbishop criticises Berlin exhibition Poland demands return of bell
from exhibition Rogasch, who has made numerous visits to museums
in Poland in recent years for talks with fellow curators, insists
that Germany has since the 1939-45 conflict worked painstakingly at
documenting the "outrageous criminal aspects of Germany's history."
"Now," he says, "this country has every right to focus on groups
whose German members were also victims 60 years ago. Now they are
in their 70s or 80s. Then, they were children. So they would neither
have voted for Hitler or known anything about the concentration camps."
"We cannot deny such groups their personal right to remember that
they were victims - victims of Nazi dictatorship and also of Stalinist
expansionism."