This vital memorial stands to remind us of the many brave, innocent people who lost their lives from the consequences of political expediency.
As Poles we joined with neighbours of goodwill, not for ourselves alone but for all nations. With every visit to The Yalta Memorial those lost lives remind us we can never take freedom for granted.
This fine narrative shines a light on the need to keep the memorial in good order for the coming decades as a testament to truth across all divides for all nations.
Innocent peoples of goodwill demanding freedom are still dying. Yet again lives are sacrificed by the lost values of humanity.
We thank Mimi for her dedication to the upkeep of the memorial and all it stands for.
Artur Bildziuk Chairman Polish Airmen’s Association UK
Having visited the memorial, I can understand better its significance.
H.E. Marie Chatardova, Czech Ambassador to the United Kingdom
So pleased that you have managed to get this project off the ground. I shall be more than happy to attend its relaunch if/when you plan one.
Cllr Preety Hudd, The Worshipful Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Throughout time there have always been people who have had to fight for freedom and democracy. Countless leaders, their governments and military, torture and silence populations to maintain their position and power. The Yalta Memorial is still a beacon for remembrance for the oppressed and for those who have perished under communism. However, its role has evolved and other countries where liberty is threatened have adopted it as their place of protest. For as long as we fight for freedom and democracy, there will be a need for the Yalta Memorial.
Thank you, Mimi, for educating us all and ensuring its history and relevance continues.
Gerry Manolas, Chair, MAFCSV
I was born in Prague. I never got to meet my paternal grandparents who died in Auschwitz. Nor did I know my mother's parents due to our escape from the communist regime to England. It is one of my greatest regrets that whilst growing up the full horrors my parents went through were never fully appreciated. I am left with myriad questions never to be answered. At a young age it was all so confusing. Father was an incredible hero: having completed the Special Operations Executive course in Scotland and Manchester he fought for the liberation of his country, suffering a near fatal parachuting accident. Yet his country branded him a traitor, with the promise of a one-way ticket to the uranium mines!
From a personal viewpoint I would thank Mimi for her work which is a fine memorial in itself. Wearing my historian's hat, it is important that such information is passed on to future generations as a warning of the forces of evil that remain out there. The inhumanity of the past must not be a foreign country.
Dr George Scott, Historian, MAFCSV
Thank you so much for the very interesting copy of the Yalta Memorial. I wonder how many people remember it now... you have made an amazing contribution to that bit of history.
Lady Milena Grenfell - Baines MBE, Kindertransport Child
I so hope, in a future time, when we are all gone, there will be people who respond to the need to keep these public monuments cared for!
Angela Conner, Yalta Memorial Sculptor
We understand that this site is very special for people and often visited by people paying their respects.
Hassan Elkholy, Parks Officer, Hyde Pa rk
Memorial Association for Free Czechoslovak Veterans ~ MAFCSV ~
A TRAGEDY ROOTED IN YALTA
In February 1945, as Second World War dr close, the three main victors met in Yalta in The Crimea agree post-war boundaries
Soviet forces had been still were crucial in liberating countries (shown right)
Nazi occupation - and Stalin had no intention of relinquishing them. He maintained grip on Eastern Europe.
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference, 1945
During those few days in Yalta some frontiers were redrawn. Cautionary words may have been whispered while bartering the liberated countries but Stalin was wily and determined. He perfunctorily offered free elections but refused to move his troops.
The story of Helena Dziedzic and her family in Poland
Things changed tragically when the Russians forced the Germans out and replaced them in occupation. They soon started purging potential opponents.
Helena’s father, a railway official, had been active in local politics. One night, Russian soldiers came and took him away. They never saw or heard from him again. A few weeks later Helena, her mother and three brothers were taken from their home and sent in railway cattle trucks to Kazakhstan. The journey seemed endless and they saw people die of starvation, thirst, or from beatings by the guards.
The missing father’s name was found on the list as one of those executed in the KATYN forest along with over 22,000 others.
A Repatriation Agreement was signed by President Roosevelt that all Soviets were to be repatriated irrespective of their personal wishes. The reconstruction of Europe needed support from their liberators. The Marshall Plan was created in 1948 for the benefit of the USA and Europe. Countries with Russian troops remaining were excluded.
After the defeat of Hitler, many survivors were returning to their liberated countries. Thousands of families were being reunited ready to rebuild their countries. Soon they would be targeted as potential subversive enemies by the puppet governments controlled from Moscow.
Those forcibly repatriated by their former Allies now faced prison, torture and the notorious gulags after being handed over. Men, women and children died under the directives of their new Soviet leaders.
The Russians enter Warsaw in 1945
Military returning home after World War II were diligently targeted for Soviet cleansing. Those alert to this new terror departed in haste for a second time. Those who hesitated were trapped for half a century.
A network of Secret Police with informers was established as systemic sweeping up of citizens was carried out. Private assets were seized. Neighbour was fearful of neighbour. Teachers were forced to teach the ideology of their new masters. Senior clerics and village priests, including the author’s uncle in Velhartice, young Father Vaclav Nemec who was repeatedly imprisoned, were silenced. Medieval church properties were confiscated. Convents that provided education, orphanages and refuge were closed. Nuns were dispersed to work in factories and forced to wear secular clothes. Sister Bibi, whose reverend mother was executed, lived in fear of her secret prayer meetings being reported. Psychological terror was in every home as children were urged to report on parents’ conversations or religious practices. Pictures of StalinFather Joe - were displayed as family ties were broken.
The story of a Czechoslovakian family
Joe, breakeroffamilies
In 1945, one returning soldier from the 2nd Armoured Division soon had a wife and children. In his posting at KARLOVY
VARY he attended local political meetings. Alerted by a colleague he was on a list to be arrested, he felt the fist of communism descend. Without delay his wife and children were loaded into his military Studebaker car. Under darkness he drove them to the nearby doctor where the children were injected and put to sleep. In his haste to depart he crushed his daughter’s flopped arm in the slamming door. It was a mess. He dared not stay. Choosing quiet routes, he drove from northern Bohemia for several hours until he reached the grandparents’ home in Velhartice. With tearful midnight farewells the fleeing
Father
Father Nemec, comforter of families
family left. Reaching the nearby border, the uniformed Czechoslovak officer ordered the Border Guards to open the barrier. With its hidden passengers the vehicle quietly drove through. On the other side the family were stopped by the American military in Regensburg responsible for that area of reconstruction. The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic secret police, who had followed them, made demands for the return of the fugitives, but they were refused. Only the car keys were thrown back across the barrier. The little girl woke up with a bandaged arm to face strange faces.
Among those left behind were names elevated forever in human history: writers like Solzhenitsyn and Havel; artists like Nureyev. But many millions regarded as insignificant were unrecorded beyond family memories or a few fading sepia photos.
Prisoners of Conscience, Justice and Amnesty International were created to shine a spotlight on the victims and fight for their freedom. A call went out from The West to send letters of protest to the perpetrators of injustices.
Newspapers of the day featured the names and photos of prisoners of conscience. Articles were published about the horrors. People were urged to write to the prisoners to show they were not forgotten. Amnesty International and church leaders kept lines of communication open.
The Red Cross enabled small packages to be safely shepherded to prisoners with the instructions:
NO BIGGER THAN A SHOE BOX & POST TO OUR AGENTS IN PRAGUE
One small box was sent to an imprisoned cleric and totally covered with over 100 Christmas stamps by his young niece in England.
Fifty years later that dying cleric revealed the box’s unwitting gift:
“Where did you get the idea for those stamps? The prison governor was a stamp collector and that Christmas every prisoner had something extra bartered for with those stamps… The letter you wrote was confiscated as it was accused of having a secret code. “
The fate of this sculpture, soon to be cut in two, mirrored the fate of families sundered by the forcible repatriations.
A MEMORIAL THAT STANDS FOR FREEDOM
The conscience of the world was stirred. In London all sides of the normal political divides and many sympathisers joined in loud protest. They gathered funds and set about organising a memorial to those lost in the betrayal at Yalta. Strong objections were raised by the British Foreign Office, who disliked its implicit criticism of the British government’s actions at Yalta, and also by the Soviets and their communist acolytes whose antipathy was to be expected
In spite of those vociferous defenders of the treaty, enough funds were raised from those who rejected the realpolitik and would never acquiesce, even after the fact, in the forcible repatriation of refugees to a communist regime.
In 1982 a tilting water sculpture was commissioned from Angela Conner to be sited in a prime central position owned by the Royal Estates. Within the shade of flowering cherry trees, it was dedicated in March 1982 by the Bishop of Fulham.
It was then repeatedly damaged, and finally cut in two with a stone saw. In spite of this criminally destructive expression and in spite of further opposition to revisiting the tragedy, funds were raised a second time. A substantial stone plinth on a circle of bricks in mortar with a large bronze sculpture was created by Angela Conner and erected in 1986.
The fact that its inscription (right) was itself damaged again testified to the stature of a memorial that makes such a uncompromising stand for freedom.
The original Tilting Water Sculpture by Angela Connor, dedicated in 1982
The twelve heads face outwards as if searching for refuge and small children innocently shelter within them. Nearby, there’s a plaque with these words:
This memorial was placed here by members of all parties in both Houses of Parliament and by many other sympathisers in memory of the countless innocent men, women and children from the Soviet Union and other East European States who were imprisoned and died at the hands of communist governments after being repatriated at the conclusion of the Second World War.
May they rest in peace.
Since the invasion of Ukraine and occupation again of Yalta many tributes have been laid at The Yalta Memorial as memories of past atrocities are being rekindled. Descendants of those victims and their representatives have visited the memorial in increasing numbers to leave flowers and cards in tribute.
Twelve Responses to Tragedy by Angela Conner 1986
Tributes laid at the memorial
A BEACON OF HOPE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Evidencing its new role, in May 2023 the cherry trees around the memorial were used to suspend red roses and more than 16 hand-drawn portraits of victims of Iranian oppression with the message, “Say their names“ - an echo from half a century past was being heard again. The memorial has become a hub for oppressed peoples wherever they might be, a beacon of hope for those who stand against tyranny – a handy-sized statue of liberty for the common man.
Hand-drawn portraits of victims of Iranian oppression with the message, “Say their names”
A card left on the memorial
As a registered war memorial, the unfenced YALTA garden in the heart of London is open to all without hindrance. In remembrance, it became hallowed ground for the many who visit and join with others to place tributes and remember those who were consigned to the cold
In a haven of greenery, families can enjoy a freedom that was achieved after the loss of countless lives, military and civilian, and the disappearance of many others at the hands of communist governments as the devastating consequences of the seven days of the YALTA Conference, 4-11 February 1945, rippled through Europe for half a century.
We, who are able to, continue to sit in the YALTA gardens and place our tributes to those who longed for freedom even as new generations, who are today denied their freedom or whose freedom is under threat, place their own appeals against oppression.
We wish to preserve the space for them as much as for those to whom it was originally dedicated.
It stands to forever remind us that liberty is hardwon… that our freedom was not free.
The Yalta Memorial Garden
Our “Statue of Liberty”
A handy-sized statue of liberty for the common man.
With thanks to The Kensington & Chelsea Mayor’s Office
The Embassy of the Czech Republic
Hyde Park’s Senior Staff
Hyde Park Police
Angela Conner
George Dziedzic
Gray Elkington, my Artistic Director
