JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) – Members of Jersey City’s council are opposing the mayor’s plan to remove a statue commemorating the 1940 massacre of Poles, as a Jewish group in Poland adds its voice to the opposition.
Three council members have called a news conference Tuesday to oppose Mayor Steven Fulop’s plan to remove the Katyn memorial from a plaza across the Hudson River from New York City.
The controversy has pitted Fulop against a Polish senator who has criticized the move. Fulop has called Polish Senate Speaker Stanislaw Karczewski “a known anti-Semite.”
The Jewish Community of Poland released a statement opposing the move, noting hundreds of massacre victims were Jewish.
The bronze statue depicts a Polish soldier impaled in the back with a bayonet. It has stood in Jersey City since 1991.
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Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.