WARSAW, July 10 (TASS) – Authorities in the Polish town of Pieniezno have ruled to demolish the statue of Soviet General of the Army Ivan Chernyakhovsky, the youngest front commander of World War II, a Polish official told TASS on Friday.
“The authorities of Pieniezno have received permission to dismantle [the monument],” said Adam Siwek, the head of the National Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites.
“The council supports the initiative of the Pieniezno authorities,” he said. “This monument is dedicated to a person negatively assessed in our history.”
General Chernyakhovsky who commanded the 3rd Belorussian Front was fatally wounded in February 1945 in the outskirts of the East Prussian town of Mehlsack (now Pieniezno). He was buried in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and reburied in Moscow in 1992.
The monument is Pieniezno was unveiled in the early 1970s.