Jersey City Council votes to keep Katyń Memorial in place in perpetuity

The Katyń Memorial stands at Exchange Place in Jersey City, near the mouth of the Hudson River. Unveiled in June 1991, the 34-foot-tall bronze statue was created by sculptor Andrzej Pitynski to honor the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre. The monument depicts a bound and gagged Polish soldier and stands on a granite base containing Katyn soil, with a depiction of a Polish woman carrying her child.

In April 2018, plans were announced to remove the memorial to make Exchange Place into a park. Mike DeMarco, chair of the Exchange Place Special Improvement District, expressed opposition to the statue remaining, calling it politically incorrect and gruesome. However, Mayor Steven Fulop withdrew his support for the removal in November of that year. During the debate, Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg co-signed a letter asking Mayor Fulop not to remove the monument, noting that the memory of the Katyn massacre is an important part of the memory of the Holocaust.

In May 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda visited the monument and spoke briefly with Mayor Fulop. Duda expressed his preference for the monument remaining in place, asking that it be placed in a respected location if its original spot was impossible to keep. Following these discussions and opposition from Polish-Americans, the council eventually took a final vote. On December 20, 2018, the nine-member Jersey City Council voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance that the monument remain where it stands in Exchange Place in perpetuity.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons