POLAND/GERMANY - WHO'S AFRAID OF ERIKA STEINBACH,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 WARSAW 000258 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/CE, EUR/OHI, DRL, INR E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2019 TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL GM PL SUBJECT: POLAND/GERMANY - WHO'S AFRAID OF ERIKA STEINBACH, AND WHY? REF: A. BERLIN 270 ¶B. 08 WARSAW 1392 Classified By: Political Counselor Daniel Sainz for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. PM Tusk and PM-Advisor Bartoszewski have been criticized by the opposition and media commentators for failing to communicate the extent of Polish opposition to the establishment of a German documentation center for expellees. In the view of these critics, the withdrawal of German Federation of Expellees president Erika Steinbach's nomination to the center's board does little to redeem a project deeply offensive to Poles. Lack of German understanding about this and other Polish insecurities surrounding the historical memory of the WWII and the Holocaust, which many Poles are only beginning to explore, will continue to bedevil efforts to strengthen Polish-German relations. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) The German Federation of Expellees withdrew Erika Steinbach's nomination for the board of the documentation center on March 4. The Polish Government hailed this as a victory made possible by improved relations with Germany. However, the opposition -- and a significant cross-section of Polish commentators -- were unimpressed, arguing that Chancellor Merkel had earlier manipulated PM Tusk and his advisor, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, into dropping long-standing Polish objections to establishment of the documentation center, without receiving anything in return. Steinbach will arguably continue to wield influence over other Federation appointees to the center's board, and has announced that she might decide to take a seat on the board at some point in the future. Subsequently, Bartoszewski characterized her as "anti-Polish." (NB: The Polish word "antipolonizm" is frequently used to respond to assertions of widespread anti-Semitism in Poland.) POLES DISLIKE STEINBACH . . . ¶3. (C) Steinbach is a lightning rod because she voted against accepting the post-War Polish-German border, opposed Poland's accession to NATO and the EU, and reportedly said that all Poles are alcoholics and anti-Semites. Poles also question whether Steinbach is a "real expellee" because -- unlike many expellees whose families had lived for centuries on what is now Polish soil -- she was the daughter of a Wehrmacht officer who first arrived in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1941. Her family fled Poland before the advancing Red Army, rather than Poles bent on revenge. However, for many Poles the issue is not Steinbach herself so much as the presumed agenda of the group she leads. BUT STEINBACH IS NOT THE REAL ISSUE ¶4. (C) Poles believe the center will promote an agenda that treats all war-related suffering as morally equivalent, thereby absolving the Germans of their responsibility and lessening Poland's claim to victim status. This is the context in which Bartoszewski made the incendiary comment that, "appointing Steinbach to the board would be equivalent to appointing a Holocaust-denier like Richard Williamson to manage the Vatican's relations with Israel." All recent Polish governments have worried -- and rightly so -- that a museum documenting the plight of German expellees will lack proper context and encourage revisionist portrayals of Germans as victims of Nazism, and Poles as perpetrators of atrocities. Similar angst is raised by occasional foreign media descriptions of "Polish concentration camps," or assertions that Poles are by nature anti-Semitic. WHY VICTIM STATUS MATTERS ¶5. (C) After World War I, political leaders sought to rebuild the Polish state by focusing on the Slavic, Roman Catholic, Polish-speaking identity that helped maintain the unity of the Polish "nation" under partition. Leaders also highlighted the common resistance to historical oppressors, including the Teutonic Knights, the Swedes, the partitioning powers, and later the Nazis and Soviets. This version of historical memory -- with victimization as a key component of national identity -- became stronger in homogenous, post-WWII Poland. ¶6. (C) Most Poles, long taught in very black-and-white terms that Poland was the victim of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are not comfortable with the contested nature and ambiguity of historical memory. Reminders of cases where Poles appear as aggressors, such as Jan Gross' research on post-War pogroms in Jedwabne and Kielce, or portrayal of the WARSAW 00000258 002 OF 002 Polish invasion of Russia in the movie "1612", create dissonance with this prevailing -- and largely accurate -- historical memory of victimhood, generating strong defensive reactions. The Polish response to the expellee documentation center fits in this vein. ¶7. (C) In the wake of Steinbach's withdrawal, residents of Zamosc have proposed building a Center for Polish Expellees to commemorate the 100,000 Poles who were sent to forced labor camps in Germany. In media interviews, the Secretary General of the Polish Council for the Protection of Sites of Struggle and Martyrdom, Andrzej Przewoznik, expressed concern that Poland needs to do more to document its own victimization at the hands of the Nazis and the Soviets. (NB: Przewoznik has been the subject of criticism from some ethnic and religious minorities that he favors "Polish" projects over other monuments commemorating the victimization of minority groups.) SEEDS OF CHANGE ¶8. (C) Only in the past ten years have issues such as some Poles' complicity in WWII-era atrocities against Jews and post-war violence against German ethnic minorities become the subject of public debate. (NB: In the West, too, many are not aware that Western Powers tacitly approved Polish initiatives to resettle German ethnic minorities in the interest of maintaining good relations with the Soviets and encouraging less brutal methods than those of the Red Army.) A growing group of historians and ethnographers is studying pre-war German settlement, and trying to preserve some of its rapidly disappearing physical remnants. In some cases, local officials or communities have acted to preserve cemeteries in formerly German villages. These seeds may in time blossom into a fuller and less defensive understanding of Poland's multicultural heritage. However, such change will likely take a long time, and for the foreseeable future the claims of German expellees will remain a neuralgic point for Poles. COMMENT ¶9. (C) Atmospheric improvements in Polish-German relations notwithstanding, bilateral tensions over the documentation center will linger, regardless of whether or not Steinbach re-enters the fray. Law and Justice (PiS) Chair (and former PM) Jaroslaw Kaczynski criticized Tusk and Bartoszewski for accepting the documentation center and then claiming victory because they blocked Steinbach's membership on its board. The GOP's inability to communicate the extent to which Polish society is only beginning to work through historical ambiguities -- and the lack of German understanding -- will bedevil efforts to strengthen Polish-German relations for some time to come. ASHE