Petition to block move of New Jersey Polish statue falls short

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (AP) — A petition drive seeking to overturn a decision to move a statue honoring Polish World War II victims has fallen short.

Jersey City city clerk Robert Byrne told the Jersey Journal Tuesday he had validated 3,833 of the 9,471 signatures submitted on July 3. Byrne said about 60 percent were either not registered to vote in Jersey City or were not found in the state’s voter database.

The Katyn Memorial, honoring the estimated 22,000 Poles massacred by Soviet troops in 1940, has stood at Exchange Place in downtown Jersey City, New Jersey, for three decades.

City officials, including Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, want to move the statue as part of a renovation of the plaza where it currently stands, on the waterfront across from downtown New York City. The head of the group organizing the renovation has called the statue “gruesome” and has said he prefers that it get a new home, according to published reports.

The bronze statue depicts a Polish soldier bound, gagged, and impaled by a bayonet. It sparked strong emotions in Poland, where Katyn is remembered as one of the worst tragedies to befall the nation in a long tragedy-filled history.

https://twitter.com/StevenFulop/status/994975158342479872

In May Fulop reached a compromise deal on relocating the Katyn Memorial whereby the statue would be moved to a new park to be created one block south of its current location.

The petition was launched in the wake of that compromise, by residents who objected to relocating the monument.

The plans to remove the statue were a top news story in Poland in May, where many feel that it is revenge for the passage earlier this year of a Polish law that makes it a crime to blame Poland for any of the Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany.

Petitioners have until August 2 to amend the signatures.