Who could have conceived of a more tragic event: in one moment the Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Poland’s army chief, the central bank governor, the highest police officers, generals, important people in public life – including the president of the Institute of National Remembrance – high-ranking bishops and representatives of the Antitotalists’ revolt with their families and more all died in this terrible plane crash.
Photo: Stanislava Kyselová, Academic bulletin
None of the 96 passengers survived after the aircraft apparently struck trees as it
approached Smolensk Airport in a fog Friday evening.
Not so far from Katyn – the neuralgic point of Polish history – seventy years after the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish military officers, intellectuals, police officers and other public servants by the Soviet NKVD in April 1940 – the entire Polish delegation lost their lives while flying from Warsaw to mark the seventieth anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
In these moments, we feel deep sorrow for the surviving families and shock in the face of such a devastating tragedy. The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic commiserates with presidents of the Polish Academy of Sciences based in Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Learning based in Krakow, employees of the Institute of National Remembrance and our other Polish colleagues and friends.
Not so far from Katyn – the neuralgic point of Polish history – seventy years after the massacre of more than 20,000 Polish military officers, intellectuals, police officers and other public servants by the Soviet NKVD in April 1940 – the entire Polish delegation lost their lives while flying from Warsaw to mark the seventieth anniversary of the Katyn massacre.
In these moments, we feel deep sorrow for the surviving families and shock in the face of such a devastating tragedy. The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic commiserates with presidents of the Polish Academy of Sciences based in Warsaw and the Polish Academy of Learning based in Krakow, employees of the Institute of National Remembrance and our other Polish colleagues and friends.
Marina Hužvárová
4.5.2010
English
