"All my predecessors have been demonised."

We have no financial demands, but we need to see questions, Erika Steinbach, the 64-year-old head of the Association of German Deportees, told HVG. She was speaking in advance of a conference to be held in the Hungarian parliament this week.

The Berlin memorial to people deported after World War II will shortly be unveiled in Berlin. You have fought strongly for this project, which was particularly controversial in Poland. Why is it so important?

E.S.: After the war, 15m Germans were deported or forced to escape from eastern, central and south-eastern Europe. That means that even today every fourth German family is personally affected. It's part of German history, part of our identity. The memorial will be a symbolic expression of this, showing that the fate of those people matters to us. It's a source of consolation and also part of our historical memory.

Aren't you just opening the door to compensation payments – isn't the memorial just the first step towards demanding money? How do you feel, for example, about the so-called Prussian Property Agency, which campaigns openly for the restoration of property once left behind?

E.S.: Our foundation has clearly distanced itself from the Prussian Property Agency. It's true, nonetheless, that the deportations were violations of international law, and this remains true even if we accept that none of it can be undone today. There are countries that have addressed the issue – Hungary showed a good example by paying compensation. We expect gestures, and this has nothing to do with financial demands.

Erika Steinbach © Máté Róbert

E.S.: All my predecessors were treated as some kind of a demon in Poland. Herbert Czaja was used to scare children like the sandman of the fairy tales. I am suffering the same fate, while I can see that they're not addressing the true aims of our foundation. But that's a Polish problem, I can't solve it. Maybe they need an enemy, so they'll call her Erika Steinbach. At the same time, in the areas where Germans once lived, who now return for visits, real personal contacts have developed – and the Kaczinsky twins never had a majority in those regions.

If you have no financial demands, why don't you say so more openly? Why don't you state in your declarations that claims for restitution are illegal? That would be a contribution to peace.

E.S.: We are an organisation representing victims, and that's a question for politics. The appropriations broke German law, and everyone has a right to bring suit in a democracy. And if there are people in Poland who live in their own houses and who worry that the Germans are coming to claim them back, then politics must recognise that fear and find a solution. As the Hungarian restitution process shows, this can be done.