Demonstrators marching under slogan "We want bread" Demonstrator throng in Mickiewicz Square Tanks in the street crossing Mickiewicz Square

It was principally on this square that the events of June '56 took place. The general strike and demonstrations of June 28 of that year were the first public protest that took place under the communist rule, in the period of Stalinist oppression. It was a demonstration against inhuman work norms and low wages. "We want truth, freedom and bread" was the demonstrators motto, as a throng of 100,000 of them crowded into the square. They occupied public buildings, broke into the jail and attempted to take possession of the security police offices. There, the building defenders resorted to the use of firearms, and some of the fire was returned.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party in Warsaw decided to suppress the demonstrations, the nascent uprising, by force. A 10,000 strong force of the militia, accompanied by tanks, was ordered into Poznań. The pacification lasted into the morning of June 29 by which time 70 demonstrators had been killed, several hundred were wounded and 700 were arrested.

After August 1980, with the rise of independent trade union Solidarność, the memory of these victims was revived and a committee for the erection of a monument was formed with the writer Roman Brandstaetter at its head. And on the 28th of June, 1981, the 25 anniversary of the uprising, the monument by Graczyk and Wojciechowski with the two crosses memorializing the Victims of June '56 was dedicated.