In the village of Striyevka, Grodno region, a memorial to Polish Home Army (AK) soldiers who died in battle with German invaders during World War II has been destroyed, the Union of Poles in Belarus said on Friday. , July 21. This is at least the eighth such incident in Belarus in the past month.

“The destruction of Polish monuments in Belarus is gaining momentum. This time, a monument to AK soldiers was demolished in the village of Striyevka, Grodno region. In 1943, 32 Polish soldiers died here fighting with the German gendarmerie,” Marek Zanevsky wrote. , Vice President of the Union.

The Belarusian Union of Poles, citing sources, claims that the local KGB was involved in the destruction, ordering the destruction of the monument to the head of a nearby collective farm. The Polish Foreign Ministry reported that Andrzej Raczkowski, the Polish consul in Grodno, came to the destroyed memorial.

The Home Army was created from resistance cells in 1942 in the territory of Poland occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the volunteer army. In post-communist Poland, the Home Army is officially honored. The Belarusian authorities equated her with “fascist criminals”, and on April 9, 2021, a criminal case was started in the Republic of Belarus against former fighters of the “House Army” for the fact of the “genocide of the Belarusian people”.

Polish WWII memorials are being destroyed in Belarus

In late June, the Union reported that in the Berestovitsky district of the Grodno region, “unknown criminals” stole tombstones and unearthed the bodies of two Polish Home Army soldiers who died in these places in 1944. On June 30, the Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported the desecration and destruction of several memorials in Bogdany, Bobrovichi, Dyndilishki, Ivye, Oshmyany and Bolshie Iodkovichi.

On 5 July, the Polish embassy in Belarus declared that the Polish military cemetery in Mikulishki, Grodno region, “has been savagely wiped off the face of the earth”. “This is reminiscent of the darkest pages in the history of communism, and given the earlier reports of the devastation of Polish military graves, it cannot be perceived otherwise than as a deliberate action to further worsen relations between Poland and Poland. Belarus,” the Polish newspaper said. Ministry said.

In response, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that there were no burials of foreign soldiers in Mikulishki, and “the legality of the work of organizing the territory was further confirmed by the Public Ministry and is based on the receipt of data on the absence of remains humans.”