Tremendous Mourning

As of Saturday April 17 the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife will lay to rest in the crypt under the Silver Bells Tower of Wawel Royal Palace in Krakow. The sarcophagus has been placed against the atrium wall that will also include a memorial tablet of all the other 94 victims of the Smolensk plane accident. Creating a shrine, the atrium will include an urn with earth from Katyn, where in 1940 by order of Stalin 22 thousand Polish officers were killed. The Polish presidential couple will rest next to Poland’s most famous kings of the 700, King John III Sobieski famous for the victory over the Turks, General Wladyslaw Sikorski who led the nation during Nazism.“Nations do not die”, wrote card. Angelo Sodano in the funeral liturgy sermon that the Dean of the College of Cardinals wasn’t able to celebrate due to the irruption of Iceland’s volcano. The prelate hopes that the tribute paid by the Polish President and “the reverent words to the victims of Katyn, that the late President wanted solemnly to honour, will help create in Europe and worldwide a new era of cooperation and peace”. The dean also added: “Experience has taught us that the Polish people are capable of reacting with dignity to the challenges of life and finding the way towards a better social co-existence and stronger national unity”. 100 thousand people gathered on Saturday in Warsaw to pray for the victims of the plane accident in Smolensk, and 150 thousand who attended on Sunday the Presidential couple’s funeral liturgy in Krakow, are a clear proof. The late President was a controversial figure but was applauded by the crowd lining in front of St Mary’s Basilica in Krakow when the current head of Solidarnosc, Janusz Sniadek in his prayer remembered Kaczynski’s faith in God and his country for a “better Poland”. True tribute to the victims. Bronislaw Komorowski, President of the lower chamber, currently governs the country. “We will truly pay a tribute to the victims – he said – if our arguments will be for the common good.” Without falling into easy rhetoric he was able to express words of gratitude to President Dmitrij Medvedev and acknowledged the concrete help shown after the disaster and unexpected and spontaneous compassion of the Russians. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz who conducted the funeral mass also addressed President Medvedev, who arrived in Krakow, notwithstanding the volcanic ashes. Highlighting that the Smolensk tragedy “has freed among people and nations great resources of good”, he stressed “a reconciliation between the two Slavic nations” “who play an important role in our generation”. Gestures of reconciliation took place in the Basilica. The last farewell was given following the Latin and Byzantine rite, attended by the Russian President and other orthodox countries. Leaving from Krakow, the Russian President Dmitrij Medvedev said: “we are now ready to undertake serious efforts to help our countries to find a solution to our problems”. A Polish person asked for the truth in Stalin’s killings during the 50-year dictatorship but as it has been remembered these days, even only mentioning the Katyn forest publicly was severely punished by the regime. “Unveiling the truth of that massacre was the real reason of Lech Kaczynski’s trip to Katyn”. Leaving Krakow, the Russian President, answering an appeal remembered that “the univocal assessment of the Katyn tragedy by Russia places the blame on Stalin”, but also added he is willing to carry out a “thorough historical investigation”. A catharsis. The nation’s mourning for the tragic Smolensk plane accident has turned into a Polish catharsis. The country came to terms with its recent past, with that of 70 years ago, and the one further down in time and also the difficult period of Lech Kaczynski’s Solidarnosc. Perhaps the cloud of ashes protected Poland during its intimate intense moments from the participation of Barack Obama, the Spanish King and Queen, the heir to the throne of England and many heads of state. by Anna T.Kowalewska (Poland)