Polish first lady flown home for cathedral funeral
Source: Agencies |
April 14, 2010, Wednesday
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THE body of Poland's first lady was greeted with tears and tulips after being flown home yesterday from Russia, and officials announced that she and her husband will be buried on Sunday in a state funeral at Krakow's Wawel Cathedral.
President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, were among 96 people killed on Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia. Investigators are pointing at human error as the cause.
Stanislaw Kracik, Krakow province governor, said the presidential couple will receive a funeral in the 1,000-year-old cathedral - the main burial site of Polish monarchs since the 14th century. The last Polish leader killed in office, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who perished in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943, is also interred there.
Maria Kaczynska's body, in a wooden casket draped with Poland's white-and-red flag, arrived in a military CASA plane at Warsaw's Okecie airport. It was met by her only child, Marta, and by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, her brother-in-law who was also the twin of the late president. Her daughter knelt by the casket and wept as a Polish honor guard stood by.
The body was then ferried slowly to the Presidential Palace in the back of a black Mercedes-Benz hearse, just like her husband's was on Sunday. Thousands of Warsaw residents lined the route, gently lobbing bouquets of tulips and roses on top of the hearse.
"I'm here because it's such a tragedy for Poland," said Maja Jelenicka, 63. "I'm in despair. I feel as if I've lost a close relative. Maria Kaczynska was a wonderful woman, kind, with a heart of gold and a real first lady."
The Tu-154 went down while trying to land in dense fog at Smolensk in western Russia. All 96 aboard were killed, including dozens of Polish political, military and religious leaders.
They had been traveling to attend a memorial in the nearby Katyn forest for thousands of Polish military officers executed 70 years ago by Josef Stalin's secret police.
The pilot had been warned of bad weather in Smolensk, and was advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere, but refused, a popular Russian daily reported.
President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria Kaczynska, were among 96 people killed on Saturday in a plane crash in western Russia. Investigators are pointing at human error as the cause.
Stanislaw Kracik, Krakow province governor, said the presidential couple will receive a funeral in the 1,000-year-old cathedral - the main burial site of Polish monarchs since the 14th century. The last Polish leader killed in office, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who perished in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943, is also interred there.
Maria Kaczynska's body, in a wooden casket draped with Poland's white-and-red flag, arrived in a military CASA plane at Warsaw's Okecie airport. It was met by her only child, Marta, and by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, her brother-in-law who was also the twin of the late president. Her daughter knelt by the casket and wept as a Polish honor guard stood by.
The body was then ferried slowly to the Presidential Palace in the back of a black Mercedes-Benz hearse, just like her husband's was on Sunday. Thousands of Warsaw residents lined the route, gently lobbing bouquets of tulips and roses on top of the hearse.
"I'm here because it's such a tragedy for Poland," said Maja Jelenicka, 63. "I'm in despair. I feel as if I've lost a close relative. Maria Kaczynska was a wonderful woman, kind, with a heart of gold and a real first lady."
The Tu-154 went down while trying to land in dense fog at Smolensk in western Russia. All 96 aboard were killed, including dozens of Polish political, military and religious leaders.
They had been traveling to attend a memorial in the nearby Katyn forest for thousands of Polish military officers executed 70 years ago by Josef Stalin's secret police.
The pilot had been warned of bad weather in Smolensk, and was advised by traffic controllers to land elsewhere, but refused, a popular Russian daily reported.
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