Organization won't Compensate Sudeten Germans

An organization charged with improving German-Czech relations has rejected a gesture to offer some sort of payment to Sudeten Germans expelled from their homeland after World War II. The payment, a largely symbolic gesture, was requested by an association made up of Sudeten Germans expelled from what is today the Czech Republic in 1945. Several high-profile German politicians quietly supported the payment which the association saw as a "humanitarian gesture." The German-Czech Future Fund, established by German and Czech leaders in 1997, voted on Monday against the gesture, saying that it didn't fit with the fund's goals because it didn't deal with a project of interest to both sides. The sum of the proposed payment was not disclosed.