In the years after the Second World War, around three million German-speaking people were forcefully moved from Czechoslovakia.
The expulsions followed six years of Nazi occupation, and nothing in this letter diminishes the crimes of Nazi Germany against Czechs, Jews, Roma and many others.
In 1945, the German civilians were not just pushed aside; thousands of civilians were also killed: on the Brno death march, in the massacre in Ústí nad Labem, and in towns and villages across the country. Many were killed by members of the Czechoslovak army, the Revolutionary Guards and armed civilians. Almost none of these crimes were ever brought to trial.
Postoloprty, a small town in Bohemia, is one of the darkest examples. In May and June 1945, Czechoslovak soldiers and other armed men murdered hundreds of German civilians from Žatec, Postoloprty and the surrounding area. The town barracks were the centre of the killings. Exhumations in 1947 recovered 763 bodies, and historians believe the true number was higher.
The barracks were demolished in 2016. This year the site was turned into a construction site for a new housing project, and on 1 October 2026 human remains were found there.
Yet nothing at the site tells what happened. Eight decades later, these victims still have no official names and no words in the places where they died.
Remembering them is not about collective guilt. It is about acknowledging that history also includes what happened here, and about not allowing the site to be built over in silence.
We, the undersigned, call on Czech public institutions and the Postoloprty city council to:
- Openly acknowledge and condemn the crimes committed against civilians in 1945, including those committed by members of the Czechoslovak army.
- Protect sites such as Postoloprty from erasure and mark them truthfully.
- Support historical research and the identification and dignified burial of the victims.