The group, called the Committee for the Defence of Jersey City's Katyn Monument, brings together a number of Polish American organisations that aim to prevent the statue from being moved from its current location at Exchange Place in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from New York City, according to Warsaw-based broadcaster Polish Radio.
Members of the Polish community in the United States and officials in Warsaw protested after Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop last month announced that the statue would be removed in order to redevelop a public square that has been the monument's home for 27 years.
Fulop said at the time that the monument would be put in storage while the space is converted into a park.
The announcement sparked a trans-Atlantic row, with Polish Senate Speaker Stanisław Karczewski calling the plan "really scandalous" and "very unpleasant" and Fulop responding on Twitter that Karczewski "has zero credibility."
The Polish ambassador to the United States has called for an apology from Fulop.
Karczewski said he had taken legal steps over the mayor’s accusations.
The monument at the centre of the row features a 10-metre-tall bronze figure of a soldier - who has been gagged and bound and impaled by a bayonetted rifle - mounted on top of a granite base containing soil from the Katyn Forest in western Russia where thousands of Poles were murdered by Soviet secret police during World War II.
'Coalition of patriotic organisations'
The new Polish American pressure group includes representatives of the Katyn Monument Committee from Jersey City and members of what are called Smolensk-Katyn Committees. Representatives from a network of groups linked to the conservative Polish weekly Gazeta Polska and to broadcaster Radio Maryja are also part of the Committee for the Defence of Jersey City's Katyn Monument, alongside activists representing veterans' organisations and the Polish American Congress, according to Polish Radio’s Washington correspondent Marek Wałkuski.
The monument’s sculptor, Polish-American artist Andrzej Pitynski, is also a member of the new advocacy group, Polish Radio reported.
The public broadcaster quoted one Polish American activist, Tadeusz Antoniak from Philadelphia, a member of what is known as the Gazeta Polska Clubs network, as describing the new committee as a "coalition of patriotic organisations."
According to the Polish community, the statue commemorating the 1940 massacre of 22,000 Poles by the Soviets has historic, educational and emotional value.
Polish American activists note that the base of the monument features a plaque dedicated to the victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attack on the United States, according to a report by the niezalezna.pl website.
Since announcing that the statue would be removed, Fulop has said that it needs to be renovated but that it would ultimately stand in a “respected” place.
Poles living in America have announced plans to stage a series of demonstrations in defence of the Jersey City statue over the weekend.
Unveiled in June 1991, the monument features a 10-metre-tall bronze figure of a soldier — who has been gagged and bound and impaled by a bayonetted rifle — mounted on top of a granite base containing soil from the Katyn Forest in western Russia where thousands of Poles were murdered by Soviet secret police during World War II.
Around 22,000 Polish prisoners of war were killed with shots to the back of the head in the spring of 1940 on orders from top Soviet authorities in what came to be known as the Katyn Massacre.
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Source: Polish Radio, niezalezna.pl