"Eighty-five years ago, we fought tyranny and terror for democracy and freedom," Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik said during the ceremony on Wednesday.
"Those soldiers did not die in vain,” he told representatives of the four nations that retook the Arctic port of Narvik on May 28, 1940.
“Today we are friends and NATO allies, standing together in support of Ukraine," Sandvik also said.
Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanisław Wziątek said the battle showed that "when we are together, we have the strength to defeat evil…"
"We honor their blood sacrifice and the freedom it bought for a future Europe," he told the ceremony.
The ceremony, organized by Poland’s Office for Veterans and Victims of Oppression, included veterans' groups, scouts and delegations from France and Britain, whose troops fought alongside Norway and Poland’s 5,000-strong Podhale Rifles Brigade.
Although the Allies later evacuated under German pressure in France, the operation provided a morale boost and temporarily denied the Wehrmacht access to Swedish iron ore.
Ninety-seven Polish mountain troops and 59 sailors from destroyer ORP Grom are buried at Narvik and nearby Hakvik.
Sandvik said the lesson of 1940 was that “cooperation and friendship must again defend freedom,” while Wziątek vowed Poland and its partners would “stand together against today’s threats from the East.”
(jh/gs)
Source: dzieje.pl, PAP
Click on the audio player above for a report by Michał Owczarek.