Reconciliation pilgrimage in Brno highlights ongoing divisions over wartime memory

A reconciliation pilgrimage commemorating the Brno Death March took place in the Czech city of Brno, demonstrating that memories of wartime events continue to divide people decades later. The event honored victims of the May 1945 forced expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, when more than 20,000 German civilians, mostly women, children and elderly people, were driven from Brno toward the Austrian border without adequate food, water or medical care during the chaotic period following World War II. The death toll from the march remains disputed among historians, with some sources suggesting thousands perished. The pilgrimage, organized to promote reconciliation between Czechs and Germans, revealed that the traumatic events of 1945 still generate controversy and differing interpretations of history among participants and observers.