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Polish victims of Soviet secret police remembered

PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki 13.08.2018 07:00
Tens of thousands of ethnic Poles killed in the former USSR in the late 1930s were remembered at memorial ceremonies over the weekend.
Memorial ceremonies at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East in Warsaw on Saturday. Photo: PAP/Rafał GuzMemorial ceremonies at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East in Warsaw on Saturday. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz

"Today, we are paying tribute to the over 100,000 of our compatriots who were brutally murdered only because they spoke Polish” and “were faithful to their Christian religion," Jan Józef Kasprzyk, head of Poland's Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression, said during a ceremony at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East in Warsaw.

At least 111,000 Poles were murdered in the former USSR and more than 100,000 others were deported into the Soviet interior, mainly to Kazakhstan and Siberia, as part of the so-called “Polish Operation” of the Soviet Union’s NKVD secret police in 1937 and 1938, Poland’s PAP news agency has reported.

Kasprzyk said during the Warsaw ceremony that the murdered Poles fell victim to communism, which he said was one of the most criminal ideologies in the history of mankind.

"This ideology was built on hatred, and this hatred led to the crime whose victims we are honouring today," Kasprzyk said.

In a letter read out during the ceremony, President Andrzej Duda said that the events decades ago were a case of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Poles who were Soviet citizens at the time.

“A state that kills its own citizens and deprives them of all rights, cannot count on recognition and respect," Duda said in his letter.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also wrote a letter to say that “the Polish Operation, approved by [Josef] Stalin and conducted by the NKVD, was one of the worst crimes against the Polish nation committed in the Soviet Union.”

The NKVD launched its "Polish Operation" on August 11, 1937, following an order issued by its head at the time, Nikolai Yezhov, the PAP news agency reported.

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP

tags: NKVD
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