that the individual had already chosen the country in which they wanted to live. Restricting sale of property to foreigners In November 2005 Der Spiegel'' published a poll from the Allensbach Institute which estimated that 61% of Poles believed Germans would try to get back territories that were formerly under German control or demand compensation. There are also some worries among Poles that rich descendants of the expelled Germans would buy the land the Polish state confiscated in 1945. It is believed that this may result in large price increases, since the current Polish land price is relatively low. This led to Polish restrictions on the sale of property to foreigners, including Germans: special permission is needed. This policy is comparable to similar restrictions on the Baltic Åland. These restrictions were lifted 12 years after the 2004 accession of Poland to the European Union, i.e. on May 1, 2016. The restrictions were weak and not valid for companies and certain types of properties. The attempts by German organisations to build a Centre Against Expulsions dedicated to German people's suffering during World War II has led Polish politicians and activists to propose a Center for Martyrology of Polish Nation (called also Center for the Memory of Suffering of the Polish Nation) that would document the systematical oppression conducted on Polish people by German state during World War II and which would serve to educate German people about atrocities their state and regime conducted on their neighbours. However, this proposal was attacked and rejected by German politicians. German minority in the Czech Republic There are about 40,000 Germans remaining in the Czech Republic. Their number has been consistently decreasing since World War II. According to the 2001 census there remain 13 municipalities and settlements in the Czech Republic with more than 10% Germans. The situation in Slovakia was different from that in the Czech lands, in that the number of Germans was considerably lower and that the Germans from Slovakia were almost completely evacuated to German states as the Soviet army was moving west through Slovakia, and only the fraction of them that returned to Slovakia after the end of the war was deported together with the Germans from the Czech lands. The Czech Republic has introduced a law in 2002 that guarantees the use of native minority languages (incl. German) as official languages in municipalities where autochthonous linguistic groups make up