For years, Poland has been removing from the public space the symbols of Moscow’s past occupation, taking away monuments and plaques, although the drive does not include cemeteries.
Poland is definitely the leader of de-Sovietisation in Europe: On Oct 27, for the first time in history, four Polish towns simultaneously dismantled monuments to the criminal Red Armyhttps://t.co/oJpuFwjZ1R
📹via @visegrad24 pic.twitter.com/Kbz67IPC4q— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 28, 2022
IPN President Karol Nawrocki stressed that the Soviet monuments dismantled on 27 October are a symbol of enslavement, not liberation:
“Symbol of the system which, after 1945, subjected half of Europe, including Poland. Symbol of the system that murdered Polish workers and anti-communist opposition activists. Finally, a symbol of the system that inspires today’s leaders of the Russian Federation, that are responsible for the war in Ukraine.”
Russia argues that it liberated Poland when its forces drove out German Nazis at the end of the war, while most Poles believe that the Soviet Union replaced Nazi occupation with another form of repression.