Jeremy Szumczyk is an art student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, Poland. Upon researching the use of rape as a weapon by the Red Army in 1944, he felt compelled to create a sculpture.
The sculpture depicts a Russian soldier raping a pregnant woman with a gun to her head. The statue was displayed on Gdansk’s Avenue of Victory but it was a short lived viewing. Authorities promptly removed the status and Szumczyk was arrested and questioned. He was later released, the daily mail reports.
If you were one of the millions of German woman living in Gdansk, Poland between 1944 and 1945, chances that you were raped by the Red Army soldiers were very high. Nearly 100,000 Polish and Russian women were also included in the rapes.
When the Nazis invaded Russia, 30 million civilians of the Soviet Union lost their lives and approximately 3 million were starved to death in German prisoner war camps.
Both rape and murder were common practices for the Nazi soldiers. They used these tactics to advance through Russia. It wasn’t before long when the Russians retook their land and invaded Germany. The Germans then suffered the same fate, massive accounts of rapes and murders.
In 1944, the Red Army began using rape as a weapon against the females who lived in Eastern Prussia. It is said that every female between the ages of 10 and 89 were assaulted. To add insult to injury, the females were often raped in front of their family and husbands.
A Red Army War Memorial located in Berlin has been dubbed “The Tomb of the Unknown Rapist”.