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Polish town starts fundraising to demolish monument to Soviet general

Local leaders ruled to remove the statue in early July but decided not to pay for the work from the town’s budget
The monument in Pieniezno ITAR-TASS/Sergey Medvedev
The monument in Pieniezno
© ITAR-TASS/Sergey Medvedev

WARSAW, August 4. /TASS/. Authorities in the Polish town of Pieniezno have started collecting donations to fund demolishing the monument to Soviet Army General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, youngest front commander during World War II, a local mayor said on Tuesday.

The demolition, which the mayor calls "a symbolic act of historical truth restoration," is estimated to cost $19,000. Local leaders ruled to remove the monument in early July but decided not to pay for the work from the town’s budget.

General Chernyakhovsky, commanding the 3rd Belorusian Front, was fatally wounded in February 1945 on the outskirts of the East Prussian town of Mehlsack (now Pieniezno). He was buried in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, and reburied in Moscow in 1992.

The monument was unveiled in the early 1970s.