Czech Republic: ” “a burdensome legacy” “

On 17 May 1945, after the victory of the Allies (with the liberation of Slovakia by the Russian army), the so-called Czechoslovak Republic was born. It was headed by Eduard Benes, on his return from exile in London. He signed the accord with Poland of 20 March 1947; among its provisions was the expulsion from the two countries of the German minorities accused of collaboration with the Nazi regime. These decrees were then adopted by the constituent Assembly, sanctioned by the Constitution of 1948 and ratified as law. In Czechoslovakia’s case, they made provision for the expulsion and expropriation of the property of the German minorities in the former Sudentenland, and of the Magyar minorities in Bohemia, and a different juridical regime for Czech citizens of German and Hungarian origin. A group of 250 intellectuals of every political persuasion and representatives of the Church met in recent days in Prague and signed a manifesto against the reinforcement of the so-called “Benes decrees” that the Social-Democratic party (CSSD) in government and the Democratic People’s Party (ODS) in opposition have proposed with a joint motion on the occasion of the opening of the election campaign for the renewal of Parliament. “The decrees of [former] President of the Republic Benes and the forced transfer of the Germans – says the declaration – represent a painful problem, with regard to which a public debate needs to be conducted in Czech society, also at the political level. On the contrary – say the signatories – we are witnessing an attempt to exploit unbridled nationalistic emotions to demonstrate a spurious national unity, which is supposed to earn points in the current election campaign. We thus fear the limitation of political freedom and of plurality of opinion in our society, and the deterioration of relations with our neighbours, which may even place our entry into the EU at risk”. The Czech Republic’s membership of the EU presupposes in fact a careful evaluation of Czech legislation on property to ascertain its conformity with European norms and with the principle of equality respected by the member countries. In the view of Ursula Stenzel, president of the mixed EU-Czech parliamentary Commission, “appealing to the Benes decrees is discriminatory towards the citizens of the Union”, as the UN Committee for Human Rights has repeatedly pointed out. Attention to the question, together with an appeal “not to undermine the process of reconciliation between the two peoples”, is also being paid by the Czech Episcopal Conference which, in a document signed by Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, archbishop of Prague, and Archbishop Jan Graubner of Olomouc, president of the Episcopal Conference, points to the dangers “of the way politicians are acting” in this delicate matter. “Expression of the peculiar spiritual point of view of the Church”, the document – entitled “Good neighbourly relations between Czechs and Germans must have success” – points out that “reconciliation, rapprochement and union between our peoples may only be achieved once the construction of reciprocal relations is conducted in such a way that a spiritual process is simultaneously realized”. Now, continues the document, “it is the Church’s task to make her own contribution” not only “to the solution of the German-Czech and Austrian-Czech conflict but also to the overall process of the unification of Europe”. In the attempt to “alleviate the suffering and open new ways” to reconciliation, steps were also taken by the Christian Churches in the immediate post-war period. The first such measure was the pastoral letter of 1945, which exhorted the faithful “not to punish the innocent together with the guilty” and rejected “the principle of collective guilt” vis-à-vis the German minority. Further steps towards reconciliation were the letters exchanged by the two episcopal conferences in 1990 when, “after the collapse of the Communist systems in Europe, the hope was created of being able to free ourselves together from this burden of the past” . Patrizia Collesi