POLAND/GERMANY: Relations between Poland and Germany have deteriorated further following the decision of three Polish organisations to recall key exhibits loaned to a controversial exhibition in Berlin about expelled European peoples.
After just a week on display, a state-owned Polish company has cancelled its loan of the bell recovered from the wreck of the Wilhelm Gustloff liner, which sank in the Baltic Sea in January 1945, killing more than 9,000 German civilians and wounded German soldiers.
The Warsaw Historical Museum has made a similar request to return two loaned objects, as has an association representing Poles expelled by Stalin to Siberia.
Tomasz Sagan, spokesman for Polish Ship Salvage, owner of the Wilhelm Gustloff bell, said the organisers misled them into thinking that the exhibition had the backing of the German government.
The exhibition, "Enforced Paths", was organised by Erika Steinbach, head of an association representing the 14 million Germans expelled from eastern territories after 1945.
"If we had known that Ms Erika Steinbach is behind this exhibition we would not have agreed to loan the bell," Mr Sagan said yesterday.
Ms Steinbach is the most hated German in Poland today, where she is accused of turning history on its head.
Rather than portray the German expulsion as a consequence of the Nazi dictatorship in Europe, Poles worry that Ms Steinbach and her association are working to have the expelled Germans viewed in the future as just another victim group of the second World War.
Ms Steinbach denies this and said yesterday that the simultaneous recall of exhibits by Polish donors was the result of a "witch-hunt" by the Polish authorities.
Ms Steinbach's organisation has its doubts that the Wilhelm Gustloff bell will be put on display in Poland's Central Maritime Museum on its return.
Before it came to Berlin, they point out, the bell was displayed in a fish restaurant.
After opening last weekend amid protests from Polish and German groups, the Berlin exhibition has been surprisingly well received: even an official sent from Warsaw wrote a positive report on his return.
But the exhibition remains a political strain. Last week Warsaw mayor Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, the former prime minister, cancelled a planned visit to Berlin.
"Under these circumstances, my visit could be misunderstood and abused," he said.
