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Funeral Mass for Poland's President

Coffins with the remains of the Polish presidential couple are taken to the Basilica of Our Lady in Krakow. Tens of thousands of grieving Poles packed into Krakow for the burial of President Lech Kaczynski, though Europe's air travel crisis kept many world leaders away.






Polish soldiers bring remains of late Polish Preisdent Lech Kaczynski and his wife to the Basilica of Our Lady in Krakow.

A funeral mass for Polish president Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, who died in a plane crash a week ago, began late Saturday at St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw. Over 100,000 Poles packed the streets of Warsaw as the coffins of of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife left the presidential palace on their way to Krakow.

Poland holds funeral for president Kaczynski

By admin

Created 18/04/2010 - 17:04

http://www.france24.com/en/print/5037326?print=now
Tens of thousands of grieving Poles packed into Krakow on Sunday for the burial of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife alongside ancient kings and heroes, though Europe's air travel crisis kept many world leaders away.
US President Barack Obama and dozens of other dignitaries abandoned plans to attend because of the volcanic ash cloud, but Russian President Dmitry Medvedev showed solidarity after the April 10 plane crash in Russia that killed the couple and 94 others.
Mourners applauded the Kaczynskis, tossed flowers and waved red and white flags as the cortège weaved through the narrow streets of Poland's former royal capital, after their bodies were flown by military aircraft from Warsaw.
Sirens wailed and church bells rang to mark the start of the funeral mass at the Gothic Basilica of Our Lady in Krakow's central square, where huge crowds had gathered to see the service relayed live on giant screens.
The archbishop of Krakow, Stanislaw Dziwisz, thanked the foreign leaders who came to the service and said he hoped the crash would help end decades of tensions between Russia and Poland.
"The empathy and help that we experienced during these days from our Russian brothers raises hope for rapprochement and reconciliation," he said. "These words I direct to Mr. president of Russia."
Kaczynski's Tupolev Tu-154 jet slammed into a forest near Smolensk in western Russia while heading for a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet forces in the Katyn forest.
Acting president Bronislaw Komorowski -- who met Medvedev before the funeral along with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk -- said at the service he hoped Russia would one day reveal the full truth about the atrocity.
Despite his reputation as an often divisive nationalist, Kaczynski and his wife Maria were to be laid to rest in the cathedral crypt of Krakow's Wawel castle, alongside Poland's monarchs, national heroes, saints and poets.
They will be lowered into a sarcophagus inscribed with their names and a cross. It will lie next to that of Poland's revered independence leader, Jozef Pilsudski.
The funeral marks the climax of a national outpouring of grief since the crash, which also killed scores of senior military and civilian officials.
"It's an exceptional moment. Poles have to be here," said Maria Kurowska, the mayor of the town of Jaslo, who was in the crowd.
Police said there were nearly 100,000 mourners in Krakow, half of them outside the church and the rest on a huge square which once accommodated some two million people during a mass by Polish pope John Paul II.
A day earlier a similar number massed in Warsaw for a public memorial service for all the victims of the crash.
But the Icelandic volcano eruption that has disrupted European air travel also cast its shadow over Sunday's funeral.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Britain's Prince Charles and South Korean Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan were among dozens of dignitaries who cancelled.
The leaders of many countries close to Poland, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, arrived in Krakow by road and rail instead.
Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus slammed EU officials for failing to come, saying that "grand phrases about European unity are really nothing but cliches."
Poles lining the streets of Krakow said the foreign no-shows did not detract from the solemnity of the day.
"It looks like a higher power is at work but nothing is keeping us away," said Anna Zajac, 28, who came with her husband and two children from a suburb of Krakow.

Wawel Cathedral in Poland

Polish Leader Buried In Ceremony Of Patriotism

President Obama, French President Sarkozy Cancel

VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer
POSTED: Sunday, April 18, 2010
UPDATED: 5:44 pm EDT April 18, 2010

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/23185984/detail.html

KRAKOW, Poland -- Tens of thousands of Poles bade farewell to President Lech Kaczynski on Sunday at a state funeral filled with pomp, pride and an outpouring of patriotism that his divisive and unpopular leadership had never generated.
Mourners applauded and chanted "We thank you!" as the caskets bearing Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, were carried slowly past pale-toned Renaissance buildings for burial among kings and poets in the ancient Wawel Cathedral.

"Poles finally appreciate him," said Ryszard Stolarski, 56, one of many weeping mourners. "I never imagined that Poland would honor Kaczynski in this way."
Many world leaders, including President Barack Obama, could not be there because their travel plans were wrecked by the enormous plume of volcanic ash that blanketed Europe.

The funeral came eight days after the Polish air force Tupolev 154 crashed on approach to Smolensk, Russia. The worst tragedy to strike Poland since World War II killed the first couple and 94 other people, including top civilian and military leaders.

In some ways the tragedy, and Russia's response to it, appear to have begun the long process of finally healing wounds that have soured the two nations' relations for decades.

Kaczynski, a lifelong skeptic of Russia and fervent anti-communist dissident, had focused on building closer ties to the United States, advocating for a U.S. missile defense base in his country. But even as president he sometimes pushed diplomacy aside to sharply criticize Russia.

Yet since the plane crash Kaczynski has become an unwitting catalyst for new words and gestures of trust between the long-divided Slavic nations.

Kaczynski's fatal flight, which investigators have said was likely caused by pilot error, was meant to take him to a memorial for 22,000 Polish officers murdered by Stalin's secret police in 1940, killings known as the Katyn massacres and intended to wipe out Poland's brightest and best.

The patriotic Kaczynski wanted to honor them and push Moscow to do more to acknowledge the Soviet crimes, which Moscow had blamed on Nazi Germany during the communist era, a cover-up often known as the "Katyn lie," and given little attention since.

After the plane crash, Kaczynski's body was recovered by Russians. The normally stoic Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin set the tone with an outpouring of emotion. And during Sunday's Roman Catholic funeral Mass, a Russian Orthodox priest also prayed over the caskets.

And though many world leaders, including Nicolas Sarkozy of France, were kept away by the travel chaos caused by Iceland's volcano, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived on a jet to pay his respects at the state funeral in the 13th-century St. Mary's Basilica.

Poland's acting president, Bronislaw Komorowski, told the congregation during the lavish state funeral for the first couple that Kaczynski's death has created hope that "we will all know the truth about the Katyn massacre."

Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz acknowledged those new ties, saying the tragedy had given rise "to many layers of good between the people and nations."

"The sympathy and help we have received from Russian brothers has breathed new life into a hope for closer relations and reconciliation between our two Slavic nations," Dziwisz said. "I direct these words to the president of Russia."

It was Medvedev's first visit to Poland, and before returning home he declared that the two nations are taking a "step into the future."

"Tragedies can bring out difficult emotions, but very often they bring people closer and I believe that that is what the residents of my country and Poles need," Medvedev said.

The rhetoric wasn't always so conciliatory.

In particular, during the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, Kaczynski had made it clear that his loyalties were with Georgia and its president, Mikhail Saakashvili.
During the conflict he traveled to Georgia and at a mass rally accused Russia of wanting to return to the "old times" of dominating the region. "Our neighbor thinks it can fight us. We are telling it no," Kaczynski told the rally alongside the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine, all former Soviet republics.

He later declared Russia's policy "imperialist and revisionist" in a joint statement with the Baltic countries.

Those words appeared forgotten Sunday, as did Kaczynski's more combative positions. He was a conservative nationalist, winning the hearts of many older Poles and war veterans. But the younger generations often found him excessively fixated on the past and accused him of harming relations with both Germany and Russia with his focus on Poland's old wounds.

But the way in which he died -- his Tupelov 154 crashing in heavy fog with a swath of country's elite aboard -- provoked profound grief and a sudden surge of admiration.

"Kaczynski had good and bad qualities, but now you shouldn't say anything bad about the dead," said Karolina Rajchel, 19, a student who traveled five hours from Wroclaw to join the 150,000 others packing Krakow's streets.

"I am here to honor the president as well as all those who died," she said.
Those who long supported Kaczynski saw the outpouring of grief and respect toward his memory as a sign that the broader society was finally coming to appreciate him.
Before he died, his most recent opinion polls showed him with around 25 percent support, meaning he faced an uphill battle to get re-elected this autumn.

New elections must be held in June, and politicians on Monday are expected to start looking toward that balloting, now that eight days of official mourning will have passed.
One big unknown centers on who will represent Kaczynski's Law and Justice party in the election, with some observers speculating that his twin brother Jaroslaw, a former prime minister, may run in his stead.

Izabella Bruchal, a wheelchair-bound engineer who watched the Mass on one of two huge video screens in a large grassy field just beyond Krakow's Old Town, said she was happy to get a degree of closure with Sunday's funeral though said the pain would not go away quickly.

"It's been horribly difficult with the coffins coming back over several days this week -- it was a nightmare. It was necessary to bury the dead president and now I feel some relief," Bruchal, 59, said as her son wheeled her off the field when the funeral ended. "But the mourning is not over. We will grieve a long time."

After the Mass, the bodies of the first couple were carried atop a pair of artillery caissons pulled by army Humvees in a funeral procession led by the archbishop, clergy in purple robes and soldiers across the picturesque old town and up the Wawel hill, where a fortress wall encircles a castle and a 1,000-year-old cathedral overlooks the Vistula River.

As they made their way down the nearly mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) route, the crowds waved Polish flags, clapped and chanted: "Lech Kaczynski! We thank you!"
Twenty monks rang the massive Zygmunt Bell inside the Wawel Cathedral, its pealing echoing across Krakow.

The first couple were interred together in a honey-hued sarcophagus made from Turkish alabaster in a crypt under the cathedral's Silver Bells Tower. Afterward, a battery of cannon fired 21 volleys, smoke pouring from their barrels as mourners watched.

The decision to bury Kaczynski at Wawel sparked protests in recent days, with some people saying that despite the national tragedy he still does not belong in the company of some of the nation's most august figures. The hue and cry over the decision even spilled over to Facebook where thousands said the decision was not right.

Wawel's crypt is the final resting place for numerous Polish kings and statesmen. Among those there are Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who died in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943; Jozef Pilsudski, who led Poland from 1926 until his death in 1935; Romantic-era poet Adam Mickiewicz; and Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution and of Poland's 1794 uprising against Russia's occupation.
___
Associated Press Writers Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Marta Kucharska in Krakow contributed to this report.
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved