world war: They were among more than 3 million German speakers expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1945 following Germany defeat in the second world war, in an officially ordered act of ethnic cleansing supposedly justified by Hitler aggression and permitted by war-time allies Britain, the US and the Soviet Union, according to The Guardian. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Erika Rahnsch. I could feel a shiver going up my spine, said the 87-year-old, recalling the sensation of trying to sleep in what had been her childhood bedroom before war and nationalist-fuelled revenge drove her family from the land they had lived in for centuries. Photograph Antonio Olmos for the Guardian Only in 2006 did Rahnsch finally return to the house of her upbringing in what had been the village of Falkenau-Kittlitz now Kytlice after its current Czech owner, Petr Kubat, heard her story and invited her to stay as a guest. By mutual agreement, both refer to the Kytlice home as our house . Their relationship has been showcased as a model of reconciliation by campaigners in the present-day Czech Republic promoting dialogue on a dark chapter in the country past the mass deportation and mistreatment of most of the country ethnic Germans on the grounds, frequently unfounded, that they supported the Nazis, who occupied the country from 1939 until the end of the second world war. They became firm friends, with Rahnsch visiting every year and Kubat, 48, who runs a dental equipment business, reciprocating with trips to her home in Waldkraiburg, Bavaria, a town established to accommodate postwar refugees.
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