Austrian cardinal criticizes demands for WWII-era compensation

Published: 2004-01-16

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- An Austrian cardinal criticized demands for compensation by Austrians and Germans whose families were expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II. "I myself was expelled, and I'm criticized for my views," said Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna. "It's true, we lost everything, but we also gained freedom, whereas our dispossessed compatriots who stayed in Czechoslovakia also lost their freedom. So today, 60 years later, let's put an end to this," the cardinal said. In an interview with Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza daily, the cardinal said his mother had "taken to the road with two children and two suitcases" after being ordered to leave the Sudetenland. "Monstrous things were done -- my grandmother died in a Czech camp, and we lost everything without compensation," the cardinal said. "But let's rejoice that we can now live in a Europe where people are incomparably better off than before, and where we can all exist together." Under 1946 and 1947 Czech decrees, up to 3.5 million ethnic Germans were deported from Czech-ruled Sudetenland with the consent of the victorious Allied powers.

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