“Glory to the heroes who fell in battle with the German invaders for the freedom and independence of our motherland!”

For more than 70 years, those words greeted visitors to the Polish town of Trzcianka. Emblazoned across the facade of an imposing mausoleum on its central square, they commemorated the Soviet Red Army soldiers who liberated the country from the Nazis — the 56 who were buried on that spot, and the 600,000 who died fighting on the territory of modern Poland during World War II.

But this September, the structure was torn down. Officials had concluded that the soldiers’ bodies had been moved decades earlier, and so gave the green light for its demolition under the Polish government’s nationwide “decommunization” program. TV cameras captured the scene as the mausoleum was bulldozed flat. Ambivalent residents looked on.

“I’m glad I lived to see this,” said one man, echoing the disgust some Poles feel about the decades of communist rule they endured after being liberated by the Red Army. “The final bastion of communism has fallen flat on its face.”