Tver region commemorates executed Poles, Soviets

MEDNOE, September 2 (Itar-Tass) -- The Mednoe Memorial Complex in Tver
region north of Moscow will hold the Day of Memory and Mourning on Friday
to commemorate thousands of Soviet and Polish citizens executed by Soviet
secret police (NKVD) in 1937-1940.
Over six thousand Polish citizens who were almost all military
officers were executed in Mednoe in 1940, a year before Nazi Germany
invaded the Soviet Union, as NKVD viewed them as a threat to national
security. The Polish part of the memorial complex has 25 common graves.
In 1937-1938 nearly five thousand Soviet victims of political
repressions were buried in Mednoe.
"Mednoe helped expose the true picture of executions in 1937-1940 and
definitely name those guilty of mass repressions of Soviet and Polish
citizens to who the memorial is devoted," Tver historian Anatoly Golovkin
said.
The Mednoe Memorial Complex was founded by an agreement between Russia
and Poland and opened to the public in 2000. The Friday mourning is timed
to the 11th anniversary of the complex.