Former Red Army base to house Poland's Soviet-era monuments
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FILE - In this April 30, 2001 file photo taken in Pieniezno, Poland, graffiti with insults like "Murderer" and "Shame" can be seen on a memorial to Soviet General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, who is considered a symbol of the imposition of communism in Poland, but a national hero in Russia. Polish authorities are planning to move more than 200 communist-era monuments to Soviet troops into a former Red Army base to testify to a historic “untruth.” Pawel Ukielski, deputy head of the state Institute of National Remembrance, or IPN, said that the plan covers structures put up in the 1940s and ‘50s to glorify the Red Army’s march through Poland at the end of World War II as it was defeating the Nazi Germans.(AP Photo/Wojtek Jakubowski, File) POLAND OUT (The Associated Press)
Polish historians say they want to move more than 200 communist-era monuments to Soviet troops into a former Red Army base to testify to a historic "untruth."
Pawel Ukielski, deputy head of the state Institute of National Remembrance, said Tuesday that the plan covers structures put up in the 1940s and '50s to glorify the Red Army's march though Poland at the end of World War II. It led to Moscow's control of Poland until 1989. The plan does not include monuments at cemeteries of Red Army troops who were killed fighting the Nazis during the war in Poland.
Historians say these structures misrepresent Moscow's control as freedom for Poland. They are to be moved to Borne-Sulinowo in the northwest, where Soviet, and later Russian, troops were stationed until 1993.