The Polish envoy, Krzysztof Krajewski, submitted the protest on Monday, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Łukasz Jasina told Polish Radio: “In full coordination with the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our embassy in Moscow has decided to submit a note of protest against the removal of a monument near Irkutsk to the Polish and Lithuanian victims of Stalinism.”
’Russia is seeking to destroy Polish remembrance’
Jasina added: “The removal marks one of the first such incidents in Russia. However, it proves that Russian authorities, similarly to Belarusian authorities, are seeking to destroy Polish remembrance of people who died in the former Soviet Union.”
Meanwhile, Krajewski told Polish state news agency PAP: “We have submitted a note to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the removal of a symbolic tombstone commemorating Polish victims of political repression in Russia and an adjacent cross commemorating Lithuanian victims.”
He added that Poland was “referring to both of these two very valuable and important commemorative objects because we do not divide victims according to nationality.”
Krajewski stated: “We object to the removal … [of the memorials] to an unknown location.”
He added that, in the note, the Polish embassy in Moscow requested information about “the whereabouts of the removed monument” and “the reasons behind the removal of this very significant commemorative object.”
Memorial to Polish victims of Soviet terror
The monuments to Polish and Lithuanian victims of Soviet terror were in the village of Pivovarikha near Irkutsk, the PAP news agency reported.
Their removal was first reported on Friday, according to Polish officials.
Krajewski said that the symbolic tombstone commemorating Polish victims was unveiled in 2015 “by a Polish organisation with the consent of local authorities.”
In the 1930s, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union (NKVD) operated a facility near Pivovarikha, where thousands were executed, according to historians.
In 1989, mass graves were discovered at the site, containing an estimated 15,000 to 17,000 bodies, the PAP news agency reported.
The Polish foreign ministry's Jasina on Monday said that Poland would “take further action” over the removal of the memorial, the IAR news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, wprost.pl