MOSCOW. Feb 5 (Interfax) - The decision by the authorities in the Polish town of Pieniezno to remove the monument to General Chernyakhovsky was made at a time when fascism is making a new statement in the world, the Russian Military Historical Society said.
"The monument to Chernyakhovsky who fell in the struggle against fascism is due to be demolished at a time when fascists are raising their heads again, including in Ukraine. We have no right to let this happen," the Society said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by Interfax on Tuesday.
"The Russian Military Historical Society considers the decision to demolish the monument to Chernyakhovsky who gave his life for Poland's freedom, a direct affront to those killed in the Great Patriotic (War) and all Soviet liberator soldiers. The Polish authorities' decision was made ahead of the anniversary of Chernyakhovsky's death. The act of demolishing the monument acquires particular cynicism in view of the forthcoming 70th anniversary of the Great Victory," the authors said.
It was the Red Army who freed Poland from fascists, the document said. "Our neighbors had better remember that the Red Army, including Chernyakhovsky's troops, freed Poland from German occupation by paying for the Poles' freedom with a very expensive price - the lives of 600,000 soldiers and officers. Pieniezno is a former East Prussian town which, along with two-thirds of East Prussia, was given to the young Polish state thanks to the Soviet Union. Chernyakhovsky's third Belarusian front saved Poles, Lithuanians, and Jews in the occupied territories, including in the bloody ghettoes of Vilnius and Kaunas. Such are the facts of history," the statement said.
We are appalled by the authorities' desire to consign everything related to the Soviet Union to oblivion, the Society's activists said. "The desire by certain circles in Poland to erase all things Soviet from the history outweighs the human attitude towards the memory of those who fought against the common enemy - Nazism," the document said.
It was reported that the town council of Pieniezno (the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, formerly Germany's Mehlsack) voted to dismantle the monument to Soviet Army General Ivan Chernyakhovsky.
After the decision to remove the monument, its fate will be a matter for the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites (a Polish governmental body responsible for perpetuating the memory about historical events which epitomize "the struggle and martyrdom of the Polish people").
The third Belarusian front commander, Army General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, was killed in February 1945 on the outskirts of Mehlsack which was part of Eastern Prussia at the time. The monument to Gen. Chernyakhovsky was erected in Pieniezno in the early 1970s at the entrance to the town, not far from the place where the general was fatally wounded.
For their part, Polish media outlets claimed that Gen. Chernyakhovsky was responsible for the arrest and deportation of over 6,000 Home Army soldiers, who in July 1944 were involved in Operation Ostra Brama - the battles during the liberation of Vilnius from fascists.