Deutsche Welle Arts and Culture, Germany
September 27, 2012 Thursday 12:45 PM EST
Remembering Europe’s touchy issue of expulsion
Over centuries, millions of Europeans have been expelled for ethnic
and political reasons, including Germans after World War II. A plan is
finally on the table that might just honor the victims – and not Nazi
crimes.
The idea for a documentation center where the fate of displaced people
is told first came up 13 years ago. It was the end of the 1990s when
Erika Steinbach, a conservative politician and president of the League
of Expellees – an advocate group for Germans and their descendents who
were expelled from eastern Europe after World War II, proposed her
plans for a Center Against Expulsions. And her plan met with firm
resistance.
Voices both in Germany and neighboring countries quickly pointed out
that such an institution could present a lopsided view of history. In
Poland, Steinbach was accused of labeling Germans as the victims in
the aftermath of World War II, without adequately emphasizing that the
fate of the ethnic Germans living in eastern Europe after the war was
a consequence of the heinous crimes the Nazis had committed in Europe.
For years, Poland has been a major opponent of the plan to build a
Center Against Expulsions in Germany and the political elite in Poland
has lobbied at the highest political level to prevent Steinbach from
implementing her initiative.
Steinbach’s plan was at a stand still until 2008, when the German
government decided to found its own organization tasked with creating
a permanent exhibition on expulsion. To smooth over ties to Poland,
Steinbach was left out of the picture entirely.
The protests ceased, in both Poland and Germany. Poland trusted the
German government to present a balanced historical view, according to
official statements from Warsaw.
A matter of interpretation
In 2010, the first plans for an exhibition was presented to the public
– and harshly criticized.
“There are two different approaches to dealing with the history of
expulsion,” said Robert Zurek, a Polish historian in Berlin. “One
takes the view that expulsions in the 20th century were mainly a
consequence of the National Socialists’ policies on European states.
That suggests, however, that not just the Nazi crimes but
nationalistic tendencies in general are responsible for the way of
expulsions.
“The second approach views the war and the Germans’ atrocities as the
main cause of expulsions in the East,” explained Zurek.
Critics of the 2010 proposal said the fate of the German expellees was
not sufficiently contextualized in the war. Some historians found it
unacceptable to put the expulsion of ethnic Germans on the same level
as other expulsions in Europe. They said that the relationship between
cause and effect – that is, between the Nazi crimes and the expulsions
of the Germans from eastern Europe – was not clear enough.
A look at the Germans who fled or were forced out of their homes in
eastern Europe after World War II was intended to be “just” one focus
of the permanent exhibition, placed in the larger context of expulsion
throughout Europe during the 20th century, emphasized Bernd Neumann,
Germany’s minister for culture and media.
According to the proposal, which is now gaining traction, the
exhibition would consider “the context of the nationalistic policies
of expansion, elimination and living space and their consequences.”
The reconciliatory aim of the exhibition was captured in the slogan:
“Remember expulsions – Respect expulsions – Deepen reconciliation and
understanding.”
The European perspective
Though the expulsion of Germans is to be the main focus, the concept
intends to take into account many different perspectives on expulsion
in Europe and include the fates of other groups as far back as the
19th century.
Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is a major issue, according to the
proposal. Millions of Muslims were forced from their homes as a result
of the Serbian uprising against Ottoman rule in 1804, the Greek
independence movement starting in 1821 and the Balkan Wars from 1912
to 1913. The Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915 and 1916 is also to
be touched upon.
The millions of people affected by Stalin’s policies in the 1930s are
another focus of the exhibition. “Forced labor, deportation, gulags,
starvation and mass murder were part of the Stalinist terror,” the
proposal said.
The effects of totalitarianism, genocide and concentration camps as
well as expulsions by Germans at the beginning of World War II will be
addressed by the project. Then start of World War II saw massive
displacements of people as the Nazis invaded neighboring countries and
sending those who were politically or ethnically “unacceptable” to
camps.
The proposal was developed by a team of 15 international historians,
including two from Poland, who aim to make history come alive with
personal stories.
Acceptance on all sides
Reactions to the paper have been positive thus far. “I am far away
from being enthusiastic, but the concept seems to be a good basis for
further discussion,” said Robert Traba from the Polish Center for
Historical Research in Berlin. Traba was one of the most outspoken
opponents of Steinbach’s suggested Center Against Expulsions and
accused her of having a penchant for mythology.
After a long public silence, Steinbach has also commented on the
current proposal. In an interview with DW, she underlined how glad she
was that plans were becoming more concrete and that expulsions “were
to be dealt with in a broad historical context and not only in the
context of World War II.”
As president of the League of Expellees, Steinbach has taken credit
for the recent developments: “Of course the federal foundation is
responsible for the project, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that
without the work of our foundation, Center Against Expulsions, a
concept for this kind of institution never would have been developed.”
The expulsions documentation center will be housed in Berlin’s
Deutschlandhaus, in close proximity to other institutions like the
Topography of Terror documentation center, which is located in the
former Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.
In addition to the permanent exhibition, temporary exhibitions on the
issues of ethnic cleansing and deportation will be part of the
program. First, however, the Deutschlandhaus building has to undergo
renovation. The federal government is covering the project’s estimated
budget of 30 million euros ($38.6 million) and the exhibition is
slated to open in 2016.