“I find its absolutely inappropriate to distribute among our children miniatures representing members of criminal military formations,” Andrzej Zawystowski, the head of the Institute’s public education desk, wrote in a letter to the management of COBI, the Polish-based makers of knockdown toys, including the Battle of Berlin collection.
“NKVD is the name of political police who committed numerous crimes against the Soviet people and the peoples of other countries occupied by the Soviet Union,” Zawystowski wrote.
He added that NKVD was “partly responsible for the violent death of hundreds of thousands of Poles during the Polish Operation of the NKVD political police in 1937–1938, for the Katyn executions, the deportation of Poles to Siberia and the August Sweep [when around 25,000 soldiers, including 300 officers of the Armia Krajowa were reportedly arrested, disarmed, and interned]” and which he described as “the biggest crime against the Polish people committed after the end of WW2.”
Andrzej Zawystowski advised the toymakers to “think more carefully when dealing with historical projects,” and presented them with a book about “crimes committed by the Communist regime in 1944-1956.”
