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Polish WWII leader Władysław Sikorski remembered on death anniversary

04.07.2022 20:00
Polish wartime leader Gen. Władysław Sikorski was remembered on Monday with ceremonies nationwide to mark 79 years since his tragic death.
gen. Władysław Sikorski
gen. Władysław SikorskiNAC/Datka Czesław

Sikorski, who headed the London-based Polish government-in-exile during World War II, died in an air crash near Gibraltar on July 4, 1943.

He was flying back to England after visiting Gibraltar when his Liberator plane plunged into the sea shortly after take-off, according to historians.

Officials and veterans on Monday laid flowers at a monument honouring Sikorski in Warsaw's Mokotów district.

During the ceremony, Jan Józef Kasprzyk, head of Poland's Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression, said Sikorski was "a symbol of hope" for his compatriots when he became prime minister and commander-in-chief of the Polish armed forces during World War II.

Sikorski led a London-based government-in-exile set up after the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939.

After the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Sikorski signed a treaty with Moscow, his erstwhile foe, to free hundreds of thousands of Polish POWs into an exile army.

"He embodied what is most beautiful in our Polish tradition: a love of freedom and a love of independence," Kasprzyk said of Sikorski.

Flowers were also placed at the tomb where Sikorski is laid to rest among monarchs and national luminaries at Wawel Cathedral in the southern Polish city of Kraków.

Gen. Władysław Sikorski's final resting place is among monarchs and national luminaries at Wawel Cathedral in the southern Polish city of Kraków. Gen. Władysław Sikorski's final resting place is among monarchs and national luminaries at Wawel Cathedral in the southern Polish city of Kraków. Photo: Institute of National Remembrance/krakow.ipn.gov.pl

Sikorski was originally buried at a Polish military cemetery in Newark in central England. His remains were brought to Poland in 1993.

(gs)

Source: IAR, polskieradio.plkrakow.ipn.gov.pl