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The Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists is a war memorial in
Berlin dedicated in 1972. It was built by the German Democratic Republic when
the country was divided in August 13, 1961. The Memorial to Polish Soldiers and
German Anti-Fascists is the chief of the German monument to Polish soldiers who
perished in WWII as well as a testimonial to the German resistance of 1933 to
1945. Located in Volkspark Friedrichshain in East Berlin, the Memorial to Polish
Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists was conceived so as to improve relations between
the people of East Germany and Poland.
The Memorial was initiated to bring about harmony between the communist Polish
People's Army and German communists in their struggle against Nazism. The monument
of gray Silesian granite was sculpted by Polish designers Zofia Wolska and Tadeusz
Lodzian and the Germans Arnd Wittig and Gunther Merkel. The centerpiece of the
Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists is a pair of 15 m stone
columns that are joined by a flag of stone. The neighborhood of the monument
is the foot of a hill which is set off by a wall that bears the motto of Tadeusz
Kosciuszko, which translates into for your feeling and ours from the original
Polish.
The relief of the monument shows the figures of a Polish and Red Army soldier
along with a German resistance fighter. Below the columns there is a dedicatory
plaque in Polish, German and Russian where wreath-laying ceremonies take place.
The Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists was rededicated in
the year 1995 after Germany was reunified to include non-communist Polish soldiers
and victims of the Nazis as also German resistance movements. There are tablets
in Polish and German explaining this. Left otherwise unchanged, the columns
still bear the communist coat of arms of the People's Republic of Poland.
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