Republican Party Stands With
The Polish American Community
The Republican Party stands with the Polish-American community and against erasing history from the public square and collective memory. Republicans understand and agree with the Polish community’s efforts in Jersey City (New Jersey) to keep the Katyn Massacre monument in place because all American’s should be educated about the horrible crimes committed against Poland and the peoples of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. The commemorative historical statue which memorializes the brutal slaughter of over 22,000 Polish soldiers, intellectuals, and leaders by the Soviet Union, then allied with National Socialist (NAZI) Germany, is only one statue, but the list of war crimes perpetrated against the people of Poland and of other Eastern European countries by the Soviet Union is almost endless. Sadly, the pillaging of Eastern Europe by the Soviets has been almost completely whitewashed from most American history lessons.
In most popular accounts of WW2 and the Cold War, the Soviet Union literally gets away with war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and other heinous acts. These crimes include mass murders, rapes, and arrests as well as the deportation of entire ethnic groups. Under Joseph Stalin’s rule alone over 15 million people were murdered by the USSR. The victims of the Katyn massacre are a testament to the amazing tapestry of pre-war Poland and included ethnic Poles as well as their fellow Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Jewish (including Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army, Baruch Steinberg) Polish citizens. Just as the Nazi’s often targeted those which might lead resistance to their rule, the Soviets too targeted those who might resist such as the Polish officer corps, Polish non-commissioned officers, community leaders, and intelligentsia.
That the Soviet Union was once allied with Nazi Germany and engaged in unspeakable crimes against humanity before, during, after the alliance, and until the Soviet collapse in 1991, is an important part of history overlooked by far too many but not forgotten by countless Americans of Eastern European ancestry and not forgotten by Republicans. From the Holodomor (the Soviet engineered starvation of Ukrainians in 1932-33), to the Katyn Massacre and the attempted erasure of Polish and other Eastern European peoples, to the violent invasion of the Czech Republic in order to suppress the freedom movement that was the 1968 Prague Spring, the USSR was a violent tyranny that should remembered as such.
The Democratic power structure of Jersey City has been trying to remove the Katyn Massacre statue for some time. Due to the amazing pushback from the community, the removal of the monument is now up for referendum on November 7. Just as President Reagan stood with the people of Poland, the Solidarity movement, and Lech Walesa against Soviet socialist tyranny, so too do New Jersey Republicans stand both with the Polish community and with all those who do not want to erase this important historical memorial.
Joshua Einstein
Secretary, Hoboken Municipal Republican Committee
NJ Republican State Committeeman representing Hudson County
