A monument to repressed Lithuanians and Poles was demolished in the Perm region

In the Kudymkarsky district of the Perm Territory, unknown assailants destroyed a monument to repressed Lithuanians and Poles. this on Saturday, April 22 . reported The local publication Zvezda

The structure was located in a forest far from populated areas - on the site of the Galyashor tract, where the now abandoned settlement of deportees was located. Residents of the surrounding villages discovered that the monument was missing on April 21.

The monument was a wooden structure on a concrete base, on the sides of which the names of 90 Lithuanians and Poles who died here were engraved on metal boards. The monument was erected in August 2016 with money from private individuals from Lithuania.

Member of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC) Tatyana Margolina reported that the monument was destroyed back in March. The equipment for its demolition traveled bypassing nearby villages.

“Official inquiries will be made regarding the incident. Because there were certain agreements about the special status of this place. Now they have been violated, and this situation needs to be discussed in detail,” Zvezda quotes Margolina as saying.

The former head of Perm Memorial, Robert Latypov , said that the regional authorities refused to legalize the monument. The last refusal from the Center of Historical Memory came “several weeks before demolition.”

Exiles began to settle in Galyashor in the late 1930s. The mass deportation of Lithuanians and Poles began after the annexation of Lithuania and the eastern regions of Poland in 1940 and continued until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. According to historians, at different times about 60 families of deportees lived here. Many exiles died of starvation or died while working in the forest.