The monument was erected in honour of Poles killed and murdered in the East , in particular those deported to labour camps in Siberia ( after the Soviet invasion of Poland ) and the victims of the Katyn massacre . It is approximately tall and is made out of bronze . The statue shows a pile of religious symbols ( Catholic and Orthodox crosses as well as Jewish and Muslim symbols ) on a railway flatcar , which is set on tracks . Each railway sleeper displays the names of places from which Polish citizens were deported for use as slave labour in the USSR , and the names of the camps , collective farms , exile villages and various outposts of the gulag that were their destinations , including the mass murder sites used by the Soviet NKVD . One of the crosses commemorates the priest Stefan Niedzielak , a Katyn activist who was murdered in mysterious circumstances in 1989 . The monument also includes the Polish Cross of Valour and a Polish eagle with rope around it and the date of the Soviet invasion of Poland displayed underneath . The monument bears two inscriptions : '' Poległym pomordowanym na Wschodzie '' ( " For those fallen in the East " ) , and '' ofiarom agresji sowieckiej 17 . IX .1939 . Naród 17 . IX .1995 '' ( " For the victims of Soviet aggression 17 . IX .1939 . The Polish nation 17 . IX .1995 " )
Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East