The quantity of memorials dedicated to Soviet soldiers, who liberated Poland from Nazi, has declined to more than half in the course of last 20 years, according to Russian Ambassador in Warsaw Sergey Andreev.
The list of Red Army monuments in Poland was created in 1997. It did not include memorials located on cemeteries and burial grounds, and counted 561 pieces. As of today, the Institute of National Memory has alleged that there are only 230 of them.
The Russian Ambassador has stated that Russian side has questioned Polish authorities many times about the fate of missing monuments, but no answer has followed yet. Andreev stressed that the agreement undersigned in 1994 obliges parties to keep records and to take care after “all rediscovered burial grounds and memorials.” At the same time, Poland has changed its position in the course of last years, starting talking that monuments outside cemeteries are not protected by this agreement. “It contradicts the undersigned document,” Sergey Andreev comments.
As we reported earlier, on June 22 Polish Sejm has passed the draft Decommunization Act that relate to monuments of the Soviet epoch. It regulates dismantling and demolition of those monuments that, according to the draft law authors, “praise Communist regime”. President of Poland Andrzej Duda has approved amendments to the Decommunization Act and signed the law in the middle of July.
According to the law experts, the new decree doesn’t give right to the Polish authorities to demolish Red Army monument.
Russkiy Mir
