The signs have disappeared. The Russians have taken them all down
In the provincial city of Vladimir, located about 124 miles east of Moscow, memorial plaques dedicated to the victims of Soviet repression, including the pre-war Polish minister Jan Jankowski and blessed Klemens Sheptytsky, have been removed - the independent from Russian authorities portal Mediazona reported on Sunday.
12:56 PM EDT, October 23, 2023
The memorial complex, which featured plaques, was erected at the site of a mass grave; all victims of repression buried there died in the nearby Central Prison in Vladimir. Even after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the memorial complex was regularly visited by foreign diplomats - writes Mediazona.
On the eve of the dismantling, Russian pro-government media published articles criticizing the monument. "In the city of Vladimir today, one can see several commemorative plaques that are not dedicated to the inhabitants of this city, nor even to Russians. These are memorial plaques in honor of the staunch enemies of our country, who are responsible for the death of thousands of our compatriots," - quotes regime publications Mediazona.
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Jan Jankowski was the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare at the beginning of the 1920s. He also held prominent public positions later on. During World War II, he was the director of the Department of Labor and Social Welfare of the Government Delegation for the Homeland. He approved the decision to start the Warsaw Uprising. In June 1945, the Soviet authorities sentenced him to 8 years of imprisonment as part of the so-called Sixteen Trial. Two weeks before finishing his sentence (in 1953) he was probably murdered, and according to the USSR authorities, he died while in prison.
Blessed Klemens Szeptycki was a Greek Catholic clergyman and a politician. He was arrested by the NKVD in 1947, and died four years later in the Vladimir prison. In 1995, he was posthumously honored with the Righteous Among the Nations medal by the Yad Vashem Institute. In 2001, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded by the President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, with the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for saving Jews from extermination during World War II.
Among those commemorated on the dismantled boards were also people like Japanese General Akikusa Siuna and pre-war Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania.
They are removing information about memorial sites
In Russia, authorities have recently been removing information about memorials to victims of Soviet repression; a large proportion of these are plaques, crosses, and other memory sites dedicated to Poles.
At the end of September, the authorities of Yakutsk, located in Siberia, removed a monument dedicated to the exiled and repressed Poles who made a significant contribution to the development of Russian science; after their exile, they engaged in the study of local culture. These were Wacław Sieroszewski, Edward Piekarski, Jan Czerski, Aleksander Czekanowski. Another of the dismantled plaques was dedicated to the victims of the XVII-XIX centuries exile and victims of political repression in the XX century.
In July, a cross that commemorates the Poles murdered there - victims of Stalinist purges, disappeared from the Levashovo wasteland cemetery located near Petersburg, known for its Stalinist repression victims, with the inscription "We forgive and ask for forgiveness". It was unveiled and consecrated in the early 90s at the initiative of the local Polish community and the Memorial organization.
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