The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the months-long operation orchestrated by Belarusian usurper authorities and targeting Polish historical memory in Belarus. In another yet particularly appalling manifestation of Minsk’s policy to distort history in the west of Belarus, a cemetery of Polish Home Army’s soldiers in Surkonty was barbarically demolished in the morning of 25 August.

Involving heavy machinery and engaging officers who blocked the memory site’s access roads and terrorised local residents trying to document the scale of damage, the operation has amounted to a particularly disgraceful example of wiping Polish traces off the surface of the earth in Grodno Region. It has also pointed evidently to the Minsk authorities as the instigators – yet again – of the demolition of Polish memory sites.

The Republic of Poland will respond decidedly to the anti-Polish smear campaign carried out by Belarusian authorities. We will never consent to more acts of state-sanctioned vandalism. It is a duty of every civilised nation to protect historical memory sites, and in particular the shared heritage of burial sites and cemeteries. We call on the Minsk authorities to come to their senses and stop the frenzy that has been preying on the historical and cultural legacy inherent also to Belarus.

 

Łukasz Jasina
MFA Press Spokesperson