11 April 2011

POLAND / RUSSIA : Plaque Dispute Sours Smolensk Crash Memorial.

REUTERS  (Pictured: Presidents Medvedev and Komorowski lay wreaths in Smolensk)

     Bad blood, perhaps intended to stir political gain, between some in Poland and Russian officials continued with a dispute over the wording of a memorial plaque at the 2010 plane crash site in Smolensk.
    Relatives of Polish crash victims attached a sign there that said- in Polish only- that the Smolensk victims died while commemorating “the Soviet crime of genocide against prisoners of war, Polish Army officers.”
     Smolensk Governor Sergei Antufyev objected, had the plaque removed and replaced with a shorter  Russian and Polish text omitting all mention of the Katyn massacre, only mentioning  the plane crash.
    Thus continues a war of words...in 500 years of mutual hostility.