The event also reflected underlying political tensions, with booing from sections of the crowd and contrasting messages from key figures.
Speaking at Piłsudski Square on the 108th anniversary of Poland’s independence, President Karol Nawrocki said the country needed a strong state, but not at the expense of liberty.
"We need a strong and efficient state to feel safe and to live in prosperity, freedom and sovereignty, not so that our freedom is restricted," he said.
He added that political elites existed to carry out the will of the nation, not to govern against it.
Both leaders paid tribute to those who helped victims of Saturday’s attack in Kraków, when a man drove a car onto the city’s Main Square and opened fire with an automatic weapon on random people.
Six were killed and 16 injured.
Nawrocki said the constitution and the political system were untouchable, and that national security must be kept out of party politics.
He argued that the Constitutional Tribunal’s prestige had been destroyed in recent weeks and urged politicians to rebuild it.
"A free nation deserves a free Constitutional Tribunal, free of police cordons, but also free of politicians."
He also warned of the lessons of the First Republic’s collapse, saying infighting among powerful elites, who let foreign powers gain influence, helped bring it down.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said unity was essential.
"Without it we fall, without it we lose, without it invaders and occupiers come."
The response to the Kraków attack, he noted, showed what Poles could do together.
"Nobody asked: 'Who did you vote for? What are your views?'"he said.
He was whistled at and booed during his speech by some in the crowd, including members of the Solidarity union and supporters of the right-wing Gazeta Polska newspaper.
He said the shouting inspired neither fear nor anger in him, but would please the country's enemies in the Kremlin.
"Poland is built by work, not by shouting," he said, quoting independence leader Wojciech Korfanty.
Replying to the president’s history lesson, he blamed the Republic’s fall on the abuse of the "liberum veto," a rule in the old parliament that let a single deputy block legislation.
He said it had freedom in its name but was the opposite of it.
The president and the defence minister also disagreed over the economy.
While presenting generals’ promotions, Nawrocki criticised Finance Minister Andrzej Domański over what he called the dire state of public finances.
Domański was also jeered by sections of the crowd during the ceremony.
Kosiniak-Kamysz defended him, arguing he had delivered the largest army budget in Poland’s history.
He said "the economy was not doing so badly," pointing out that the Pentagon had given the green light for a permanent American base in Poland and that the US had chosen the country for a service centre for Patriot missiles.
The defence minister also thanked Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who has been in Szczecin on Wednesday, for jointly laying candles at sites in Kraków where victims died, calling it a gesture of unity.
Nawrocki ended by urging Poles to celebrate with goodwill and mutual respect.
(ał)
Source: PAP