2 Children Seeking Stars Vandalized Soviet Graves, Poland Says

By Reuters

Oct. 2, 2015

Two children who wanted to pry the red stars off some Soviet graves were probably behind the vandalism of a cemetery in Poland, police said Friday.

The 57 graves were discovered vandalized last week at a cemetery in Milejczyce in northeast Poland, further straining relations between Moscow and Warsaw, already fragile because of the Ukraine crisis. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Polish envoy to protest.

"It turned out that a 10-year-old [boy] and an 9-year-old girl are most likely linked to the graves' damaging. In a conversation with a prosecutor, in a psychologist's presence, both admitted guilt," local police said in a statement.

The children wanted to take some of the red stone Soviet stars from the graves, police said. The case will now be taken over by a family court.

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