Memorial Rises Amid Protest
Krystyna Howard simply cannot understand why West Hollywood, or any American city, would want to erect a memorial to Soviet soldiers who fought in World War II. The Soviet Union's secret police, she said, deported her mother, aunt and grandmother from their home in eastern Poland to a Siberian work camp in 1940.
"It's like putting up a monument to honor the Nazis," Howard, 55, a Camarillo resident, said of the monument dedicated Sunday in Plummer Park. "That's how we equate it."
For his part, West Hollywood Councilman Jeffrey Prang cannot understand why people are unable to separate soldiers from the state they served.
"This is a monument of, for and about American residents," Prang said before Sunday's parade of ex-servicemen along a section of Santa Monica Boulevard. It "pays tribute to those veterans who fought during the war, who then came to the United States and became part of this community
Such are the conflicting views of the memorial intended to honor Russian-speaking veterans of World War II in a city with a vibrant population hailing from various corners of the former Soviet Union.
After the parade, the veterans, dressed in medal-adorned Soviet military uniforms, joined about 500 residents and local dignitaries who gathered at the park.
A handful of protesters, including a couple wearing black armbands and one carrying a Polish flag, stood by in silence.
Redlands resident Jay "Julek" Plowy, 65, calmly handed out fliers listing Soviet atrocities against the Poles.
"If you dedicate a monument on U.S. soil to a military that caused the death of millions, then you're honoring the wrong people," said Plowy, who was told he was born in a Siberian gulag after the Soviet military forced his family out of Poland. "If you want to honor the people who were oppressed, that's another story."
But the small protest did not diminish the excitement.
A gasp rippled through the crowd as curtains were raised to reveal a slanting 7-ton triangular slab of reddish granite, rising to an 8-foot, 6-inch peak. Adorning the structure are embossed images of three white cranes and four lines from "Cranes," a Soviet poem that became a much-loved song about World War II soldiers who never made it home.
Russia officially commemorates Victory Day, and the end of the war, today.
