Secretary of State in the Chancellery of the Polish President Andrzej Dera took part in a ceremony in honour of the victims of the NKVD's "Polish operation", which took place at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East in Warsaw.
Guard at the Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East in Warsaw, photo: KPRP
Minister Andrzej Dera read a letter from the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda to the participants and organizers of the ceremony and laid a wreath at the monument on behalf of the President.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
The "Polish Operation" of the NKVD was an ethnically motivated genocide. It was also revenge for the defeat of the Bolsheviks in the Battle of Warsaw. After all, it was one of the mass campaigns of repression directed against national minorities, and was part of the events known as the Great Terror.
Today we commemorate the sacrifice of over one hundred thousand Poles who lost their lives, another thirty thousand sentenced to exile, and millions of families who lost loved ones and are still healing the wounds inflicted at that time. We bow to the multitudes of our compatriots whose nationality became a stigma in pre-war Soviet Russia. Propaganda linked it to class criteria, because for the Bolsheviks Poles were simply "Polish gentlemen", and every "Polish gentleman" was a kulak, an enemy of the communist state, sentenced in absentia to death or long-term exile.
When on 11th of August 1937, a document entitled "On the fascist-insurgent, espionage, sabotage, defeatist and terrorist activities of Polish intelligence in the USSR" reached local NKVD cells, along with an order to immediately implement the "Polish operation", the execution of the criminal plan began immediately. According to the Kremlin's orders, the elimination of "Polish spies" from Soviet society was to take place within the next three months. In reality, the persecution lasted almost a year. The order issued to NKVD officers indicted all representatives of our nation. Being a Pole in itself became a basis for persecution and groundless and entirely fabricated accusations. From documents revealed after many decades, we know that even a Polish-sounding surname was enough to end one's life in an unmarked grave.
I join you in paying tribute to the many anonymous victims of those tragic events, known to us by name. Today, their fate is commemorated by the Warsaw Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East. This freight car filled with crosses, placed on an incline, seems to be rising upwards. It leaves us – participants in the annual celebrations – with the impression that it was just one of hundreds, if not thousands of such cars that rose towards the sky. Although many of the murdered did not live to see their graves, this monument to this day does not allow us to forget the supreme sacrifice they made simply because they were Poles.
Honor and glory to the Polish victims of the NKVD!
Eternal memory to the fallen!
source – KPRP
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