Putting The Past To Rest

In the anguished aftermath of World War II, almost 3 million ethnic Germans were forcibly expelled from what was then Czechoslovakia because of the majority's overwhelming support for the Nazis. The Sudeten Germans, as they have become known, lost their homes, land and livelihoods, and between 20,000 and 200,000 people — depending on which source you believe — died in internment camps and on the long march to Germany and Austria. Now the Sudeten question is once again stirring controversy in Central Europe, with fresh calls for reparations and demands that the Czech Republic be barred from the E.U. unless it...