By Peter Josika

The gesture toward German antifascists recently announced by Prime Minister Jiří Paroubek has again made the Sudeten German issue headline news in the Czech media. The expulsion of around 2.5 million German-speaking Bohemians, Moravians and Silesians remains the most controversial issue in the Czech Republic today. It is not only marked by a never-ending battle of words between politicians, historians and Sudeten Germans, but it has also become a highly debated issue in living rooms, pubs, cafés and educational institutions across the country.

Anyone who visits the Czech Republic cannot avoid coming across the subject while the locals have learned to live with it. Although the official use of the German language has vanished in recent decades, one cannot evade old signs, duct covers or historic books in German. The language and culture is there, even though the people have disappeared.

The war of words between Czech officials and Sudeten German expellee or minority organizations has at times caused uproar. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder cancelled a visit to Prague after former Prime Minister Miloš Zeman called the Sudeten Germans "Hitler's third column." President Václav Klaus and his Civic Democrats continue to use the controversy to score votes with populist slogans. Large-scale property restitution cases, but also occasional wild attacks on anything Czech by individual Sudeten Germans, have added fuel to the fire.

President Klaus loves to celebrate certain aspects of Czech history if they fit his purpose. He sees himself very much in the tradition of the republic's first president, T.G. Masaryk, and in his statements and speeches history always plays a major role. However, when asked questions about the Beneš Decrees, the postwar expulsion or the remaining German minority, he usually reacts angrily and refers to the 1997 Czech-German declaration. For him this chapter of history is closed and may not be reopened.

"We cannot change history" and "We need to look to the future," said President Klaus in a recent interview with the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine. Klaus hit the nail on the head; however, he doesn't act accordingly. Rather than dealing with the past and searching for mutually acceptable ways to coexist in the future, Klaus wants to ignore the topic. His hope is obviously based on the theory that the whole Sudeten German issue will somehow disappear as soon as the last remaining "original Sudeten German" is dead.

However, the German heritage of the Czech Republic and the century-old coexistence between Czechs and Germans in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia cannot be deleted from the people's consciousness overnight. Czechs and Sudeten Germans are historically and culturally too intermingled to simply extinguish centuries of common history in a matter of decades. While there is an ever-increasing interest in the German history of the country among many young Czechs, there is also a new generation of Sudeten Germans in Germany, Austria and the United States who have a strong awareness of their heritage and roots.

Mr. Paroubek's gesture is not only a very important step in the right direction but it may turn out to be a very clever move at the right time. The gesture only applies to people of German ethnicity who supported the Czechoslovak state before and after the Munich agreement of 1938 and does not contain any financial compensation. This very careful approach gave Paroubek widespread support within the government coalition, surprisingly even among the opposition communists. At the same time, he scored on the diplomatic field with strong support also coming from Austria, Germany, Hungary and Poland. Even those who were disappointed about the extent of the gesture, including the remaining German minority, applauded Mr. Paroubek for his courage, particularly his formal apology.

The most important part of Mr. Paroubek's gesture, however, has hardly been debated in detail, although it is in fact most forward-looking. The Czech state will invest about 30 million Kč ($1.2 million) into a research and information campaign aiming to honor certain Sudeten Germans who resisted Nazism. This will not only raise general awareness about Sudeten Germans but, more importantly, it will portray them in a positive light, which potentially marks the start of a trend reversal away from collective guilt, clichés and prejudice.

Paroubek is the first Czech prime minister who has recognized that the Sudeten German issue will not just disappear by itself. He knows that what happened in 1945 was wrong. He also knows that Czechs, who have been told otherwise for decades, need to be provided with a new angle on their past to better understand the trauma that many Sudeten Germans experienced, and continue to experience, as a result of a loss of their roots and identity.

The government-sponsored research and information campaign on Sudeten German anti-Nazis is the first step toward a reassessment of history — a move away from the black-and-white "good Czechs" versus "evil Sudeten Germans" attitude that has prevailed among the majority of Czechs since the end of World War II. It opens up a window of opportunity to improve the relationship between Sudeten Germans and Czechs once and for all.

While the first 15 years after the end of communism were marked by disputes over property and the Beneš Decrees, cultural aspects will undoubtedly become more important in the coming years. Elderly Czechs and Sudeten Germans, who themselves experienced the conflict-ridden period during and after the war, will increasingly be replaced by a young generation eager to learn about the common past. One very important cultural aspect will be the protection of German heritage, including monuments and traditional place names.

In 1945 the Czechoslovak state not only expelled the majority of its German-speaking citizens, it also disallowed the use of the language and did all it could to destroy any trace of the country's centuries-old German heritage. Monuments and signs were removed, German place names abolished and in some cases entire cemeteries were destroyed.

With the prime minister's latest attempt to change the Czech perception of Sudeten Germans, in line with the nation's obligation toward its minorities and linguistic heritage as outlined in the European charter for regional and minority languages, future gestures toward Sudeten Germans — and also toward the traditional Polish community in eastern Silesia — should focus on repairing this cultural damage.

Rebuilding old monuments, officially recognizing old German and Polish place names and putting up bilingual signage will not only provide expelled Sudeten Germans or members of the German and Polish minorities with a certain sense of belonging, it will also strengthen the relationship of the second and third generations of Sudeten Germans with their traditional homeland. At the same time, young Czechs who now live in former German-speaking areas will have a better understanding of the history and roots of the region they live in.

Furthermore, this form of cultural compensation would also help improve the relationship between the Czech Republic and its neighbors and could serve as an example for other countries where similar expulsions have changed the ethnic makeup of the populace, such as EU candidates Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Ukraine and Turkey.