Several hundred members of the German Bundestag are planning major construction projects in Warsaw. The non-partisan group of German parliamentarians - ranging from right to left - is discussing transformation plans for the Polish capital, which had been destroyed in the 1940s, when war was raging everywhere. Warsaw could finally be embellished with historical sensitivity and German money from a "Poland Fund." Berlin is discussing the reconstruction of Warsaw's huge 18th century Baroque palace, the "Pałac Saski" in reminiscence of the Kingdom of Poland, when Poland was moaning under the reign of the Saxons ("Saxony Poland") - a serious proposal from the portfolio of Germany's Poland institutes. Therefore, Warsaw's museums and libraries must also expect wide-ranging construction measures. They would be expanded, with means from the "Poland Fund," to make room for cultural goods from Germany, where they have been stored in greater quantities - some already for several centuries. They had unfortunately disappeared from Poland, when "Saxony Poland" had been succeeded by quite varying regimes under German domination. Poland's cultural heritage had been transferred to Berlin in a cloak-and-dagger operation, supposedly to safeguard it from theft and destruction. The Polish artifacts would, however, remain German property and only loaned out to Warsaw's museums, as was so caringly suggested in the Germany capital.
German money and measures of a quite different nature would have been appropriate in a suburb of Warsaw, as long as the people - whose records are stored there - were still alive. Archives of nearly 500,000 Polish citizens - documents with photos and life stories are piled up to the ceiling on several floors in a dusty hall. Of course, that hall is not a suitable venue for the Germany's "Poland Fund." These archives contain applications of former slave laborers, who, in their later years, were hoping for supplementary pay for their years of suffering at the hands of German companies. Only few received reparations. (more...)
Rather than buying influence at the Vatican per the Concordat, Germany might pay reparations to Poland.
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