The 10th meeting of the Czech Ackermann Gemeinde organization, which started today, is aimed at strengthening the cultural identity of the Czech Republic's German minority and enhancing relations between Czechs and Sudeten Germans in west Bohemia

The 10th meeting of the Czech Ackermann Gemeinde organization, which started today, is aimed at strengthening the cultural identity of the Czech Republic's German minority and enhancing relations between Czechs and Sudeten Germans in west Bohemia, Helena Faberova said. Faberova, head of the organization, told CTK that the meeting provided the Sudeten Germans living in Bohemia with an opportunity to realize that they can act freely, including speaking German, dancing and signing their national songs. "The Germans who were not resettled [to Germany or Austria after World War Two] were not allowed to do anything like that. They were not viewed as equal citizens and they feared to show their German nationality in public, as there was the unhealthy atmosphere of collective guilt," Faberova said, referring to the former post-war and later communist Czechoslovakia. The Ackermann Gemeinde was founded two years ago as a counterpart to the Ackermann Gemeinde in Germany, an organization which has been striving for new relations between Czechs and Germans, based on Christianity, since the end of the war. The Czech Ackermann Gemeinde has 320 members, most of whom are ethnic Germans. It promotes Czech-German reconciliation and the preservation of joint culture ensuing from the two nations' common history. It's goal is also to support a constructive shaping of the European future.