Polish Tragedy

April

Polish Tragedy

The Polish equivalent of Air Force One crashed today in Russia, killing 96 people, including the Polish President Lech Kaczynski. The Russian designed Tupolev 154 crashed as it descended toward Smolensk Airport in a dense fog. While the Tu-154 has largely been replaced in Russia, the older plane isn’t the reason for the crash. According to ITAR-TASS news agency, flight controllers recommended the plane divert to Minsk due to the dense fog, but the pilot chose to attempt to land in Smolensk any way.

Katyn Poster

Among the 96 killed were President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, Wladyslaw Stasiak (Chief of the President’s Chancellery), Aleksander Szczyglo (Chief of the National Security Office), Slawomir Skrzypek (Chairman of the National Bank of Poland), Jerzy Szmajdzinski (Deputy Speaker of the Lower House), Andrzej Kremer (Foreign Ministry’s Undersecretary of State), Stanislaw Komorowski (Deputy Minister of National Defence), Przemyslaw Gosiewski (Deputy Chair of the Law and Justice Party), Franciszek Gagor (Chief of the General Staff of the Polish military, Andrzej Przewoznik (Head of Poland’s Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites), and Tomasz Merta (Chief Historical Conservator).

Katyn Poster

The sad irony of the crash is that they were heading to Katyn forest in Russia to recognize the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Forest Massacre, in which the Soviet Union killed approximately 22,000 Polish officers in 1940, during World War II, in an effort to entirely wipe out the Polish officer corps. Due to Poland’s conscription policies at the time, all university graduates were required to serve as officers, it had the effect of wiping out many of their brightest young citizens. The Katyn Forest was already a dreadful place for the Polish people, and now it has claimed 96 more of Poland’s best.

President Kaczynski’s predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, summed up what must be the overwhelming feeling in Poland today, “This is unbelievable — this tragic, cursed Katyn.”

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