PRAGUE, Czech Republic, March 31 (UPI) -- Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla has issued a stinging rebuke to Germans calling for the restitution of property lost after World War II.
"I'm ready for anything but under one condition: Bring the 28 of my relatives you murdered in World War II to this table. Since you can't do that we won't re-open the past," Spidla said in response to a question during a trip to Finland, the Czech daily Pravo reported.
Nearly 3 million ethnic Germans were expelled from the Czech lands after World War II, about a third of the total population. The post-war Czech government accused the German minority of collaborating with the Nazis who invaded Czechoslovakia following the Munich agreement of 1938.
Relatives of the expelled Germans periodically file compensation claims but the German government has so far taken a soft line on the subject.
