Duda on Wednesday told high-ranking officials gathered at Piłsudski Square, where the Saxon Palace stood until 1944, that the site, alongside the Royal Castle, was one of the architectural symbols of the Polish capital.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called on all political groups in Poland to support the idea of rebuilding the Saxon Palace. “It will be the last chapter of the city’s reconstruction from the ruins of World War II,” he said, adding: “May this be a nationwide, bipartisan project uniting all Poles.”
In the early 19th century, the Saxon Palace housed a high school in which Romantic composer Frederic Chopin’s father taught French, living with his family on the palace premises.
Following World War I, the Saxon Palace served as the headquarters of the Polish General Staff. After supressing the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the Germans blew up the palace as part of their planned destruction of Warsaw.
(mk/pk)