Employees of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) carried out the demolition of a Soviet propaganda structure that had stood until now in Maszewo, in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Under an agreement between Maszewo and the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a monument dedicated to post-World War II resettlers will be erected in front of the kindergarten where the communist relic once stood. The IPN will also develop the surrounding area.
The demolition was overseen by the deputy president of the IPN, Dr. Karol Polejowski, and by the director of the IPN’s Szczecin branch, Krzysztof Męciński. After 10:00 a.m., excavators began work and the structure became a thing of the past.
It remains unknown under what circumstances the two-meter obelisk, erected in May 1947, disappeared from in front of the town hall and ended up on Jedności Narodowej Square. “Most likely it became inconvenient for those in power at the time, so they decided to hide it”, said Mayor Piesio.
The Mayor of Maszewo, Paweł Piesio, recounted that in the 1980s the monument featured a red star. “I remember how I and my classmates formed honor guards by this monument. Did we want to? No”, he recalled. He mentioned old photographs showing Russian soldiers of the Red Army standing by the monument. In the mid-1990s, the Red Star was replaced with the White Eagle, though without the crown. Later, the Eagle was removed and replaced with a sphere, but the misleading inscription “Glory to the liberators 7 III 1945” remained.
Maszewo and the other areas that today form Goleniów County were taken by the Red Army and the First Polish Army between 5-7 March 1945. The first settlers arrived in the Nowogard region in July 1945 and found empty, looted houses with no livestock, no agricultural machinery and no food supplies. Like elsewhere throughout Western Pomerania, they were primarily resettlers from the central and southern voivodeships and repatriates from the former eastern provinces of the Second Polish Republic.
Under the agreement between the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) and the Municipality of Maszewo, a memorial dedicated to the residents of Maszewo and the surrounding area who came here after the end of World War II will be erected in 2026 at the site of the removed Soviet propaganda structure. “Such a commemoration is something we deserve here. For over eighty years we have been building Polish identity in this place”, the mayor concluded.