It is the first such unequivocal position from the German government since last year when Warsaw and Berlin reached a compromise on the shape of the Visible Sign - a centre to commemorate the post-war expulsions of ethnic Germans from what is now Poland and Czech Republic that the German government plans to build in Berlin.
Poland made it clear from the very start that it would never agree for
Erika Steinbach, head of the Federation of Expellees, to sit on the centre's board of directors. Prof Bartoszewski repeated that position to
Angela Merkel yesterday.
Ms Steinbach and the expellees supporting her count on her being appointed as one of the Visible Sign's twelve managing directors. Such an appointment would be a crowning achievement of her long-time career in the expellee movement.
'Ms Merkel told Mr Bartoszewski that she has a serious problem with Ms Steinbach who has persistently pressed to be given the job. She reportedly told Ms Merkel that if she withdrew her candidature it would mean drawing a line through her whole past life and that was something she couldn't agree to,' a Berlin diplomat tells Gazeta. 'On the other hand, Ms Merkel has promised that she won't let the issue damage Polish-German relations,' he adds.
This means that Ms Steinbach won't be given the job on the Visible Sign's board. The problem is that Berlin wants to handle the issue delicately. According to Gazeta's sources, if Ms Steinbach doesn't withdraw her candidature herself, Berlin will simply postpone the decision on creating the Visible Sign and appointing its board of directors. According to DPA, the decision has already been made and the nominations will be announced only next year.
'Let Steinbach feel that her obstinacy is harming the whole project. We hope she reconsiders her position quickly,' says Gazeta's source.
The expellees have meanwhile reacted with uproar to Prof Bartoszewski's words from two days ago when in interview for the Polish Press Agency he compared Ms Steinbach to Bishop Williamson, the Holocaust denier.
'That's a shocking defamation,' Jochen-Konrad Fromme, a CDU deputy associated with the expellees said yesterday.
translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak
