Graves of 6 Polish Victims
Electrocuted By Czechoslovak
Iron Curtain
Platform has located graves of six of the thirteen electrocuted Polish victims for whose death Lubomír Štrougal is responsible
Praha/Bratislava, 27 July 2017. Researchers of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience have found the graves of six of thirteen identified Polish victims who were killed by electrocution on the Czechoslovak Iron Curtain. The responsibility for their deaths lies primarily with former Minister of Interior, later member of the Politburo and Prime Minister Lubomír Štrougal. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance, which initiated criminal proceedings in the cases based on the findings of the Platform this February, announced last month that they were interested in exhuming the remains of the Polish citizens.
Based on a submission by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, prosecutors of the Main Commission for the Prosecution of the Crimes against the Polish Nation, which is a division of the Institute of National Remembrance, initiated criminal proceedings this February in cases of killings of Polish citizens on the Czechoslovak Iron Curtain in the years 1961-1965, when Lubomír Štrougal (*1924) was Minister of Interior.
The Platform research team has identified altogether thirteen Polish victims who died by electric shock from high voltage electricity in the wire barriers on the border of Czechoslovakia with Austria at the time when Štrougal was Minister. Further work aimed at determining the fate of the bodies of the killed persons led to the finding of so far six unmarked graves in which the remains are most probably resting until today.
According to the Communist regulations the bodies of those who were killed on the Iron Curtain were to be buried in unmarked graves levelled with the terrain. None of the relatives or close persons were to be informed about the burial.
The Platform is forwarding the information to the Polish prosecutors who are interested in exhuming the remains.
Platform of European Memory and Conscience Press Release