"WAR REPARATIONS. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION" - DEBATE
The debate with the participation of, among others, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arkadiusz Mularczyk; and the Director of the War Losses Institute, Prof. Konrad Wnęk, was not the only debate the audience of the 15th NNW International Film Festival could listen to. On the fourth day of the event (i.e. 30 September), there was yet another debate addressing the issue of war losses.
It was attended by a member of the Council of the War Losses Institute (and at the same time President of the Board of the Polish National Foundation), Dr Marcin Zarzecki; a columnist of Do Rzeczy weekly, Antoni Trzmiel; and a journalist of Republika Television and Radio Wnet, Aleksander Wierzejski. The meeting was moderated by a representative of the Research Division of the War Losses Institute, Dr Tomasz Luterek.
The meeting attempted to summarise the efforts made so far to inform the public about the reparations issue. Dr Zarzecki noted that, until relatively recently, the reparations issue in public discussion was seen as finally settled. However, thanks to the publication of The Report on the Losses Sustained by Poland as a Result of German Aggression and Occupation during the Second World War, 1939-1945, Poles have learned how much they lost as a result of this conflict. Most importantly, thanks to this study, reparations are discussed not as an unspecified idea, but already at the operational level, i.e. specific amounts and precisely defined expectations on the Polish side. As Dr Zarzecki summarised, without this document, our discussion would be merely theoretical.
The significance of this change was emphasised by Dr. Luterek, who described the War Report as a new form of narrative blow against Germany. In doing so, he mentioned that, after all, only two decades or so ago, it was the German side that was demanding compensation from Poland for the properties of the former inhabitants of East Prussia, among others. At this stage, thanks to the Report, this can no longer be an issue. Antoni Trzmiel added that, in Germany, almost every family benefited to some extent from the robbery carried out by the occupation administration on Polish territory.
Editor Wierzejski, who follows German media coverage on a daily basis, mentioned the Germans' surprise at our expectations regarding war reparations. This is all the stronger because, on the other side of our western border, the narrative invariably holds that Poles are an immature nation, mismanaging territories taken over from the Germans, and should be put under surveillance. The journalist summarised their position as "What do they (i.e. the Poles) still want?! After all, the German Chancellor (Willi Brandt) knelt down in front of the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes and the matter is already settled". It is therefore hardly surprising that, with such an attitude, the expectation on the Polish side that Berlin would acknowledge its financial responsibility for the losses suffered by Poland as a result of German aggression and occupation came as a shock mixed with disbelief in Germany.
Following the discussion between the participants in the debate, comments and opinions were expressed by the audience. These included how to get the message about war losses across to the widest possible audience. Hence, the Director of the Institute joined the discussion in this part of the meeting, recalling some of the activities of the Jan Karski Institute in the field of popularisation.