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Centre Against Expulsions

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Template:Future product The Centre Against Expulsions (Template:Lang-de, ZgV) is a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the Expulsion of Germans after World War II. The centre will open in the Deutschlandhaus building, Berlin-Kreuzberg.

The project was initiated by the Federation of Expellees, who dedicated a "Foundation Centre Against Expulsions" to the centre. This foundation is based in Wiesbaden, and headed by CDU politician and president of the Federation of Expellees, Erika Steinbach. The other head of the foundation was SPD politician Peter Glotz who died in 2005.

Since late 2008, the project is forwarded by the Federal Republic of Germany, when the federal government and parliament passed a law calling for the constitution of a Foundation German Historical Museum subordinate to the federal government, which in turn shall hold a Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation which shall take on the actual documentation in Berlin.

"Foundation Centre Against Expulsions" of the Federation of Expellees

The Federation of Expellees (Template:Lang-de is the German non-governmental head organization of various organized groups of German refugees and expellees. The federation is committed to document the post- World War II flight and expulsion of Germans as well as other forced displacements, and maintains an exhibition for this purpose shown in changing locations of Germany. To expand this exhibition and to find a permanent place for it, the Federation of Expellees set up the "Foundation Centre Against Expulsions" (Template:Lang-de) on 6 September 2000.

Objectives

The foundation Centre Against Expulsions defines four objectives:

  1. To document the history of settlement, culture, post-World War II deportation and expulsion, forced labour, torture, and later emigration of Germans from various countries of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, in a modern museum. The museum shall provide room for the documentation and "additional space for sadness, sympathy and forgiveness" in a requiem rotunda.
  2. To document and to evaluate the impact of the integration of millions of uprooted Germans into the post-World War II German society.
  3. To document the "expulsion and genocide of other peoples, especially in Europe", arguing that "displacement, expulsion and genocide can never be justified, are always a crime, contradicting human rights and carried out by following the archaic thinking of the bloody vendetta."
  4. To donate a Franz Werfel Human Rights Award to people who "sharpen the sense of responsibility through their actions is one of the foundation's tasks".

"Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation"

On 11 November 11 2005, the largest German political parties SPD and CDU signed a coalition. One stated goal of the coalition is the establishment of a centre termed "Visible Sign" (Template:Lang-de).

On 3 September 2008 the German federal government passed a law calling for the establishment of a center against expulsions in the Deutschlandhaus building of the Anhalter Bahnhof site in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The law passed the German parliament and was enacted on 29 December 2008. The center is to be run by a "Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation" (Template:Lang-de) subordinate to the governmental "Foundation German Historical Museum" (Template:Lang-de), both foundations are yet to be created.

"Foundation German Historical Museum" of the German federal government

The purpose of this foundation is stated in §16 of the above mentioned law as follows:

(1) The purpose of the non-autonomous foundation is to ensure in the spirit of reconciliation the remembrance of flight and expulsion in the 20th century in the historical context of the Second World War and the Nazi expansion and extermination policy and their aftermaths.

(2) This purpose shall be fullfilled especially by the following measures:

  • (2.1) Establishment, maintenance and expansion of a permanent exhibition documenting flight and expulsion in the 20th century, the historical background and contexts as well as the European dimension and effects.
  • (2.2) Development of singular exhibitions for special aspects of the overall context.
  • (2.3) Distribution of research results and scientific findings.
  • (2.4) Gathering, documentation and scientific evaluation of respective sources and materials, also and especially eyewitness accounts.
  • (2.5) Cooperation with German and international museums and research centers.

Perception

Support

The Centre Against Expulsions has been supported by a number of human rights activists, historians, political scientists and authors as well as other people. Among these supporters are the United Nations' first High Commissioner for Human Rights Dr. José Ayala Lasso, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Nobel literature laureate and Holocaust survivor Imre Kertész, Joachim Gauck, Milan Horacek, former Austrian crown prince Otto von Habsburg, prominent German rabbis Walter Homolka, Eckart Klein, and historians such as Guido Knopp, Hungarian novelist György Konrád, historian Michael Wolffsohn, Hans Maier, Christian Tomuschat and Alfred M. de Zayas.

Criticism

In a petition initiated by Hans Henning Hahn, Eva Hahn, Alexandra Kurth, Samuel Salzborn and Tobias Weger in 2003, signed by several hundred people, primarily German, Czech, and Polish historians, opponents of the proposed form of Centre expressed concerns the centre would "establish and popularize a one-sided image of the past, without historical context", and see the dangers of "de-contexualizing the past" and "ethnification of social conflicts".

Critics in Poland oppose the idea of a research centre in Berlin led by Erika Steinbach because it equates Germans with Jews and Poles, and attempts to suggest a moral equivalence between the victims of war and their oppressors. The Polish government opposes the involvement of Steinbach in Polish-German relations regarding historical issues and at the same time supports an international net of centres dedicated to remembrance of totalitarian regimes and their victims called "Memory and Solidarity". Steinbach has relinquished her seat in the panel of the "Foundation German Historical Museum" in March 2009.

See also

References

  1. ^ Centre Against Expulsions, foundation website, "Tasks and Objectives"
  2. ^ German Federal Government, press release, 3 September 2008 (including link to the law (pdf file)
  3. ^ Centre Against Expulsions, foundation website, "Our Foundation"
  4. ^ full text of German law to establish a foundation "German Historical Museum": Gesetz zur Errichtung einer Stiftung „Deutsches Historisches Museum“ (DHMG) vom 21. Dezember 2008 in der Fassung der Bekanntmachung vom 29.Dezember 2008 (BGBl. I Nr. 64, S. 2891) (pdf file) (html file)
  5. Centre Against Expulsions, foundation website, "Permanent exhibition"
  6. Centre Against Expulsions, foundation website, "Franz-Werfel-Human Rights Award"
  7. German Federal Government, Appointee for Culture and Media, center conception, press release 19 March 2008
  8. ^ full text of §16, law for establishment of a foundation "German Historical Museum": Gesetz zur Errichtung einer Stiftung „Deutsches Historisches Museum“ § 16 Stiftungszweck (1) Zweck der unselbständigen Stiftung ist es, im Geiste der Versöhnung die Erinnerung und das Gedenken an Flucht und Vertreibung im 20. Jahrhundert im historischen Kontext des Zweiten Weltkrieges und der nationalsozialistischen Expansions- und Vernichtungspolitik und ihrer Folgen wachzuhalten. (2) Der Erfüllung dieses Zweckes dienen insbesondere: 1. Errichtung, Unterhaltung und Weiterentwicklung einer Dauerausstellung zu Flucht und Vertreibung im 20. Jahrhundert, den historischen Hintergründen und Zusammenhängen sowie europäischen Dimensionen und Folgen; 2. Erarbeitung von Einzelausstellungen zu speziellen Aspekten der Gesamtthematik; 3. Vermittlung von Forschungsergebnissen und wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen; 4. Sammlung, Dokumentation und wissenschaftliche Auswertung einschlägiger Unterlagen und Materialien, insbesondere auch von Zeitzeugenberichten; 5. Zusammenarbeit mit deutschen und internationalen Museen und Forschungseinrichtungen
  9. tagesschau:Merkel supports center against expulsions in Berlin
  10. For a critical and enlightened debate about the past
  11. Mark Landler, International Herald Tribune, 31 August 2006, (Poles riled by Berlin exhibition, Germans’ expulsion after the war is its focus
  13. Der Spiegel, ERIKA STEINBACH AND GERMAN VICTIMS OF WWII, 'I Want the Truth, and Nothing But'

External links