Trzaskowski: Nawrocki as the president of the Institute of National Remembrance and President Duda must speak on Miednoje

Karol Nawrocki, as the president of the Institute of National Remembrance and President Andrzej Duda should speak as soon as possible regarding the devastation of the monument to the victims of the Katyn massacre at the cemetery in Mednoje; This must meet with the very hard response of our country – said KO candidate for president Rafał Trzaskowski.

Trzaskowski in an interview with TVN24 on Wednesday was asked about the devastation of the monument to the victims of the Katyn massacre at the Polish war cemetery in Mednoje, Russia.

In response, the politician assessed that “there are no cases, this is a provocation.” “The Russians do this in every possible way, try to interfere in elections throughout Europe. (…) and this must meet with the very hard response of our country,” he emphasized.

“The Russians should immediately restore these holy symbols for us and I am very happy that Minister Radosław Sikorski reacted immediately. I am surprised that Karol Nawrocki (the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, supported by PiS candidate for president – PAP) and the Institute of National Remembrance did not react at all, because this is a scandalous matter,” said Trzaskowski. He expressed the hope that both Nawrocki and President Andrzej Duda “would speak on this matter as soon as possible.”

“It seems that here all political forces should react immediately, and above all the Institute of National Remembrance, because this is what it was created for,” he said.

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski informed on Wednesday that the monument of the murdered Polish prisoners – the victims of the Katyn massacre, which is located at the Polish war cemetery in Mednoje in Russia, was devastated. Based on the decision of the Tver District Prosecutor's Office from the cemetery monument, the bas -relief of the Virtuti Militari War Order and the Cross of September 1939.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared on Wednesday in connection with the devastation of the Polish monument at the war cemetery in Miednoje that it reads “this outrageous provocation not only as an attempt to interfere in Polish presidential elections, but as a typical Russian attempt to change history, which is to disturb the historical fact that on September 17, 1939, Stalinist Russia and Hitler attacked Poland.” “It is all the more outrageous because at the same time Putin's Russia restores the cult of a man who gave the order of the murder – Józef Stalin. Worship, whose victim was not only Polish prisoners of war, but above all Russians and the nations of the USSR” – noted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The spokesman for the Institute of National Remembrance Rafał Leśkiewicz stated in a PAP conversation that the Polish government – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage is responsible for taking care of the cemetery in Miednoje. He also emphasized that “the Institute of National Remembrance strongly protests against those activities that were carried out in Miednoje by the Twers prosecutor's office.”

The Polish cemetery in Miednoje was opened and dedicated on September 2, 2000. It is lied to over 6,300 Polish prisoners of the Special Camp in Ostaszków, who in 1939 defended Poland against Soviet aggression, mainly officers of the State Police and Police of the Silesian Voivodeship, Border Guard and Prison Guard, soldiers and officers of the Border Protection Corps and other military formations, employees of state administration and state administration employees, state administration employees, state administration employees the judiciary of the Second Polish Republic. (PAP)

mml/ par/