Dozens of Russian scholars sign open letter condemning removal of two memorial plaques that honored victims of Stalin’s Terror

Scholars at the Russian Academy of Sciences have issued an open letter condemning the authorities in Tver for removing two memorial plaques that honored the victims of the Stalinist repressions. The text was published by the newspaper Kommersant with the signatures of 69 academics.

In their letter, the scholars call the dismantling of the plaques “an attempt to bury in oblivion the crimes of the Stalinist regime and create a new version of history where there’s no place for them. [...] What happened cannot be ignored and erased from history.”

The letter’s signatories want the plaques reinstalled and they demand punishment for “those responsible for this crime against the national historical memory.”

On May 7, implementing orders from the local district attorney’s office, officials removed two plaques posted outside a former secret police building. Erected in the early 1990s, one plaque honored local residents killed in the region’s labor camps and the other was dedicated to massacred Polish prisoners of war.