The last sacrifice

“Only faith in the Risen Christ can redeem the sense of this sacrifice, of this grief”, declared the Primate of Poland, Archbishop Henryk Muszynski. He called the disaster of Smolensk, in which the Polish President and another 95 leading figures in Polish public life lost their lives, a “consummation of the terrible sacrifices exacted from the Polish people during the second world war: sacrifices that represent, at the same time, an appeal to continue our efforts aimed at overcoming internal divisions and committing ourselves to the building of the nation’s common good”. The Archbishop, who heard news of the tragedy as he was participating in the celebrations for the installation of the new Primate of the Czech Republic, Archbishop Dominik Duka of Prague, decided to return to Gniezno; he was particularly shocked by the news also because of the bond of personal friendship he had established with President Kaczynski.The seed that bears harvest. Archbishop Muszynski also expressed the hope that the “tragic accident of Smolensk” would be translated into a commitment “to a greater and more united community” “both at the national level and in relation to our neighbours”. “Why – asked the archbishop – had the tragedy of the innocent death of our country’s political and intellectual élite been added to the greater tragedy of the last war?” Perhaps “the direct causes of this tragic accident will in future be clarified”, but – the archbishop suggested – “they will probably remain for ever without an exhaustive answer. The grief and sorrow not only of the families of the victims, but of all Poles, would also remain unaltered”. In his homily pronounced during the mass celebrated for the souls of the victims of the disaster on Sunday 11 April, the Polish primate paid tribute to President Kaczynski and remarked: “Today, the whole world speaks of the painful truth of the massacre of Katyn. The grain of wheat must die to produce a good harvest. That’s how it was in the life of Christ, in that of St. Adalbert, also in that of John Paul II and Father Jerzy Popieluszko, the beatification of both of whom we await. We must hope that the many efforts made by President Lech Kaczynski, which caused him so many sufferings during his lifetime, will produce the hoped-for harvest after his death”.The Polish Calvary. “In April 1940 over 21,000 Polish prisoners of war, detained in the internment camps and prisons of the NKVD [Soviet secret police], were executed. This genocide was perpetrated with the agreement of Stalin and on the orders of the highest authorities of the Soviet Union. The alliance between the Third Reich and the USSR, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the Soviet Union’s aggression on Poland on 17 September 1939 had their dreadful culmination in the Katyn massacre”. These are just some of the words that Polish President Lech Kaczynski was to have pronounced at the cemetery of Katyn, on Saturday 10 April, had the tragic air accident at Smolensk not happened. “Not only in the forests of Katyn, but also at Tver, Kharkov and in other places of execution, some known, others still to be discovered – Kaczynsky would have continued -, the citizens of the Second Republic of Poland, those who laid the foundations of our State, those who were steadfast in rendering service to their country, were massacred. At the same time, the families of the victims and thousands of inhabitants of the eastern territories of Poland were deported to the Soviet Union, where their indescribable sufferings marked the path of the Polish Calvary in the East”. At Katyn “officers, priests, civil servants, members of the police forces, railway guards and penitentiary police were shot in cold blood, without trial or verdict. They were the victims of a war that had not been officially declared. They were put to death in violation of the laws and conventions of the civil world. Their dignity as soldiers, Poles and human beings was debased”. No more lies. “The world – the Polish President would have recalled – was never supposed to learn anything” of Katyn, “but the families of the victims and other courageous men remained faithful to their memory; they defended it and transmitted it to the Poles of future generations. They nurtured that memory through the period of the Communist regime and consigned it to their compatriots in a Poland that had now become free and sovereign”. For this reason, “to all of them, and especially to the families of Katyn, we owe respect and recognition. On behalf of the Republic of Poland I express the deepest gratitude, because by preserving the memory of your loved ones you have saved an important dimension of the Polish conscience and identity”. Katyn was not only “a grievous injury for Polish history but for many decades it continued to poison relations between Poles and Russians. We must do all in our power to ensure that this injury of Katyn be finally cured, that the scars it left be healed. We are already on the right road. We Poles do not underestimate the work of the Russians in recent years. That path of reconciliation between our peoples must be continued, without cease and without relapse”. President Kaczyñski’s speech to commemorate the victims of the massacre was supposed to end with this hope: that “the lie of Katyn may vanish for good from public opinion. We ask this especially to honour the memory of the victims and out of respect for the sufferings of their families. But we ask it also in the name of the common values that must be at the basis of trust and partnership between neighbouring peoples throughout Europe”.