On 10 December 2025, in Maszewo (West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Goleniów County), a Soviet symbol has disappeared from public space. The structure was erected on 9 May 1947 to commemorate the “liberation” of the town by the Red Army. The seven-feet-high obelisk originally stood in front of the town hall; it was topped with a red star and bore a plaque with the inscription “Glory to the liberators 7 III 1945.” Later, stripped of inscriptions and symbols and crowned with a sphere, it stood on the square by Jedności Narodowej Street.
During the briefing, the Deputy President of the IPN recalled that the Soviets who entered Maszewo were not liberators; they did not bring freedom to Poland, and that the monument erected there was intended to legitimize their rule over the area.
To the Soviets, to propaganda objects, to Russians who believe that these lands somehow belong to their sphere of influence, we say ‘no’. This is a free and independent Poland, emphasised Prof. Karol Polejowski.
He thanked Mayor Paweł Piesio and the residents of Maszewo for removing the structure. He assured that the Institute of National Remembrance would support the creation of a new commemoration. Under an agreement concluded between the IPN and the Municipality of Maszewo, a memorial dedicated to the residents of the town and the surrounding area who came to these lands after the end of the Second World War will be created in 2026.
Prof. Karol Polejowski recalled the appeal made by Karol Nawrocki—then President of the IPN and now the serving President of the Republic of Poland—regarding the decommunization of public space, and called on local governments in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship to take decisions to remove remaining Soviet propaganda objects.
The event was attended, among others, by: Andrzej Pozorski, Director of the Chief Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation; Dr. Marek Jedynak, Director of the Office of the IPN President; Dr. Rafał Kościański, Spokesperson of the IPN and Director of the Press Office; Joanna Sulej-Piskorz, Deputy Director of the IPN Office for Commemorating Struggles and Martyrdom; and Krzysztof Męciński, Director of the IPN branch in Szczecin.
Broadcast available on the IPNtv channel (in Polish):
Maszewo is another municipality that has responded to the appeal of the Institute of National Remembrance concerning the decommunization of public space. Thanks to the appeal issued by the President of the IPN on 4 March 2022, a new stage of decommunization in Poland began. The dismantling of monuments is a practical implementation of the Act of 1 April 2016 on the prohibition of propagating communism or any other totalitarian system through the names of organizational units, auxiliary units of municipalities, buildings, public facilities, and monuments. So far, we have removed 43 objects of Soviet propaganda.
Maszewo and the other areas that today make up Goleniów County were seized by the Red Army and the First Polish Army between 5 and 7 March 1945. The first settlers arrived in the Nowogard region in July 1945 and found empty, plundered houses, without animals, without agricultural machinery, and without food supplies. As was the case throughout Western Pomerania, they were primarily displaced persons from the central and southern provinces, as well as repatriates from the former eastern voivodships of the Second Polish Republic.
Watch a video about Decommunization of public space: