Referendum on Jersey City's Katyn monument
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
25.10.2018 12:50
A referendum is to be held in December in Jersey City about the fate of a monument to Poles massacred by the Soviets in World War II, according to Polish Radio.
The Katyn Massacre monument in Jersey CityPhoto: Colin Knowles [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Voters in Jersey City are to confirm or reject a plan to move the monument to victims of the Katyn Massacre a few dozen metres from its original location nearer to the Hudson River.
Polish Radio reported that Jersey City media would inform residents about the referendum "soon".
A plan to move the monument by 60 metres sparked a transatlantic spat after Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop announced the monument would be removed while its home at Exchange Place would be converted into a park.
But some of the Polish community opposed the plan and petitioned to have the monument left in its current location.
The announcement drew fierce criticism from Poland and Polish Americans.
Jersey City's mayor later said the monument would be moved to a "respected" place.
The monument at the centre of the row features a 10-metre-tall bronze figure of a soldier—who has been gagged and bound and impaled by a bayonetted rifle—mounted on top of a granite base containing soil from the Katyn Forest in western Russia where thousands of Poles were murdered by Soviet secret police in 1940 during World War II.
The plans drew fierce criticism from Poland and Polish Americans.
The monument features a 10-metre-tall bronze figure of a soldier — who has been gagged and bound and impaled by a bayonetted rifle — mounted on top of a granite base containing soil from the Katyn Forest in western Russia, where thousands of Poles were murdered by Soviet secret police in 1940 during World War II.
(vb/pk)
Source: IAR