State funeral for Poland's first couple
Source: Agencies |
April 19, 2010, Monday
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AN elaborate state funeral for Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, was held yesterday without many world leaders whose travel plans were paralyzed by the plume of volcanic ash that has covered Europe.
The couple's bodies were flown from Warsaw to Krakow yesterday for the tradition-laden ceremony and burial in the nearby Wawel Cathedral, the final resting place for Poland's kings, poets and statesmen, including General Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who died in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.
United States President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the leaders who canceled at the last minute because of the expanding volcanic ash cloud, dangerous to airplane engines, that has enveloped Europe and closed nearly all of the continent's airports since last Thursday.
"All the French people will be, in their thoughts, with the Polish people" yesterday, Sarkozy said in a letter sent to Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski expressing his regret for being unable to attend.
The volcanic ash from Iceland did not deter everyone. The leaders of Baltic and Balkan states, came by car for the stately event.
Polish police estimated the number of mourners in and around Krakow at nearly 150,000.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew by plane from Moscow for the funeral. His presence was a further sign of the warming ties between the two countries, which had been strained for centuries, most recently because of the 1940 Katyn massacre.
Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz acknowledged those ties in remarks to the congregation, noting that 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."
The funeral Mass was held at St Mary's Basilica, a 13th-century red-brick Gothic church set on a vast square in Krakow's Old Town.
The funeral came eight days after the Polish air force Tupolev 154 crashed on approach to Smolensk, Russia, killing the first couple and 94 others. Those aboard had planned to attend a memorial for thousands of Polish army officers executed in 1940 by secret police.
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