The Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East is a monument in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

which commemorates the victims of the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subs ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and subsequent repressions. It was unveiled on 17 September 1995, on the 56th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of 1939.

History

During the era of the

People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...

, the

Polish communist Communism in Poland can trace its origins to the late 19th century: the Marxist First Proletariat party was founded in 1882. Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (''Socjaldemokracja Króles ...

authorities colluded with the Soviet Union to censor information about the

in 1939 and repressions carried out against the Polish population during the period of Soviet occupation from 1939 - 1941, as well as subsequent repressions following the Soviet takeover of Poland in 1944-5, in particular - denying Soviet culpability for the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...

of 1940. After the fall of the communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, the new authorities in Poland officially endorsed a project to create a number of monuments and memorials commemorating those events. The Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East was designed by Maksymilian Biskupski and is located at the intersection of Muranowska and General Władysław Anders streets in Warsaw. Biskupski designed the monument in 1991, construction began on 18 August 1995, and it was officially unveiled on 17 September 1995 - the 56th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of 1939. Attending the unveiling ceremony were the

Primate of Poland This is a list of archbishops of the Archdiocese of Gniezno, who are simultaneously primates of Poland since 1418.Józef Glemp Józef Glemp (18 December 192923 January 2013) was a Polish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Warsaw from 1981 to 2006, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983. Biography Early life and ordination Józef Glemp was b ...

, Chief of General Staff of the Polish Army Tadeusz Wilecki,

President of Warsaw The city mayor of Warsaw, or more literally the ''city president of Warsaw'' (the official title in Polish is ''"prezydent miasta stołecznego Warszawy"'', literal translation ''"president of the capital city of Warsaw"'') is the head of the exe ...

Marcin Święcicki Marcin Święcicki (born 17 April 1947) is a Polish politician and economist. He is a former deputy minister of economy, former minister for foreign economic relations as well as a former city mayor of Warsaw. Early life and education Święcic ...

Prime Minister of Poland The President of the Council of Ministers ( pl, Prezes Rady Ministrów, lit=Chairman of the Council of Ministers), colloquially referred to as the prime minister (), is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibi ...

Józef Oleksy Józef Oleksy (; 22 June 1946 – 9 January 2015) was a Polish left-wing politician, former chairman of the Democratic Left Alliance (''Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej'', SLD). Early life and education In his youth he lived in Nowy Sącz, and was ...

and

President of Poland The president of Poland ( pl, Prezydent RP), officially the president of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej), is the head of state of Poland. Their rights and obligations are determined in the Constitution of Pola ...

Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democrati ...

. The monument's construction was underwritten by the Polish government, non-governmental organizations, and private individuals.

Description

The monument was erected in honour of Poles killed and murdered in the East, in particular those deported to

labour camps A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...

in Siberia (after the

) and the victims of the

. It is approximately tall and is made out of

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids suc ...

. The statue shows a pile of religious symbols (Catholic and Orthodox crosses as well as Jewish and Muslim symbols) on a railway

flatcar A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry ...

, which is set on tracks. Each

railway sleeper A railroad tie, crosstie (American English), railway tie (Canadian English) or railway sleeper ( Australian and British English) is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties trans ...

displays the names of places from which Polish citizens were deported for use as slave labour in the USSR, and the names of the camps, collective farms, exile villages and various outposts of the gulag that were their destinations, including the mass murder sites used by the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

. One of the crosses commemorates the priest Stefan Niedzielak, a Katyn activist who was murdered in mysterious circumstances in 1989. The monument also includes the Polish Cross of Valour and a

Polish eagle The coat of arms of Poland is a white, crowned eagle with a golden beak and talons, on a red background. In Poland, the coat of arms as a whole is referred to as ''godło'' both in official documents and colloquial speech, despite the fact that ...

with rope around it and the date of the Soviet invasion of Poland displayed underneath. The monument bears two inscriptions: ''Poległym pomordowanym na Wschodzie'' ("For those fallen in the East"), and ''ofiarom agresji sowieckiej 17.IX.1939. Naród 17.IX.1995'' ("For the victims of Soviet aggression 17.IX.1939. The Polish nation 17.IX.1995").

Memorial ceremony and papal visits

An annual memorial ceremony is held at the monument on 17 September.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

prayed here during his seventh Polish pilgrimage in 1999. In 2006, during his pilgrimage to Poland,

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereig ...

's popemobile was also taken past this monument (among others) on the way from the airport to Warsaw's cathedral.

Gallery

File:Pomnik Poległym i Pomordowanym na Wschodzie 01.JPG, The monument viewed from the west File:Pomnik Pomordowanych na Wschodzie 1.jpg, The railway flatcar File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (15275114038).jpg, Religious symbols inside the railway flatcar File:Pomnik Poległym i Pomordowanym na Wschodzie 03.JPG, The inscriptions dedicated to the victims File:Warsaw East Monument.jpg, The railway flatcar viewed from the south File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (8176386176).jpg, The Polish eagle on the southern side of the railway flatcar (with rope tied around it and the date of the Soviet invasion underneath) File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (8176346589).jpg, Close up of the railway sleepers showing the names of outposts of the

like Archangielsk File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (15438539916).jpg, The railway flatcar File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (8176349331).jpg, This stone was added to the monument after Pope John Paul II said a prayer for the victims of Soviet aggression at the site in 1999 File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (8176379708).jpg, Close up of the railway sleepers showing the names of

mass murder sites like Katyn File:Div6DSC 1024.jpg, A memorial plaque dedicated to the deported mothers File:Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East (15275089357).jpg, Close up of the railway sleepers - many of the victims of Soviet deportation were sent to Siberia

References

External links