A détente in the dispute over the expulsions centre

The nomination of Erika Steinbach, president of the Association of Expellees and a controversial figure in Poland, to the board of the planned Centre against Expulsions in Berlin has caused tensions between Poland and Germany. But according to the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza Steinbach is no longer to play a decisive role in the museum against expulsions: "The Polish special representative to Germany Władysław Bartoszewski has been assured that the influence of the leader of the Association of Expellees in the museum for expellees 'Visible Sign' which the German government plans to erect in Berlin will remain limited. This is a turning point in the decade-long dispute over how Germans are to be allowed to commemorate the mass deportations of their compatriots which followed the Second World War. Listening to Steinbach you would think it wasn't the Germans who declared war but the Poles and the Czechs – the true victims of Nazi Germany – who were the persecutors. [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel has made frequent assurances that 'Visible Sign' would not rewrite the past. Now her words sound even more plausible."

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