When I first heard the news of the tragic airplane crash that took the life of Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland, on his way to the commemoration of the massacre of some 22,000 military officers, intelligentsia and other “undesirables” by the Soviets in Katyn Forest on April 3, 1940, one of my first thoughts was, “Not again!”
The Katyn massacre, like so many other historical events, is etched in the collective memory of the Polish people. In the 1980’s, I worked for a naturalized American whose father was among the Polish officers who was murdered there. But for decades, the Soviets tried to cover up their role in this atrocity. The heavy handed way that they attempted to shift blame to the Nazis, by using German ammunition, is well documented.
It has only been in recent years that the Russians have been willing to admit to having commited this vile act (although the government has yet to issue an apology). A formal ceremony, attended by Putin, Medvedev and Polish Prime Minister Tusk, had already taken place in the Katyn Forest on the Wednesday before the crash.
But the “not again” doesn’t have anything to do with the actual massacre of 70 years ago. In early 1943, Polish Prime Minister in Exile Wladyslaw Sikorski unilaterally sought the aid of the International Red Cross to investigate the Katyn Massacre. Bear in mind that this was still during World War II, and the Soviet Union was allied with the United States and Great Britain in their fight against fascism. Any revelations about the Soviet’s role in Katyn would have been not only an embarrassment for the USSR, the USA and the UK, but also a propaganda coup for the Germans.
On July 4, 1943, General Sikorski flew out of Gibraltar (a British colony at the time – now part of Spain). His plane crashed shortly after takeoff under very suspicious circumstances, killing Sikorski. But unlike the latest crash that took the life of President Kaczynski, the pilot of Sikorski’s plane, a Czech, survived. His survival was due at least in part to the fact that he was wearing a so-called “Mae West life jacket.” The irony of this is that the pilot was notorious for refusing to wear such a device. When he was interrogated later, he claimed to have no recollection of having donned the life jacket. There are other questions involving who might have had access to the plane shortly before takeoff. After years of speculation over who, if anyone, was responsible for this crash, an investigation concluded just last year indicated that there was no foul play involved.
Although I’m always fascinated by a good conspiracy theory, I’m not ready to claim that the recent crash that killed the Polish President, First Lady and numerous government officials was anything but a tragic accident brought on by the error of an arrogant pilot that refused to heed the advice of the air traffic controllers in Smolensk. But the coincidence of the Katyn massacre and the deaths of Sikorski and now Kaczynski seem to fit into a long string of misfortunate that has befallen the Polish people for centuries, going back at least to the partitions of this country in the late eighteenth century that lead to its disappearence from the map of Europe for 123 years.
The opening lines of the Polish national anthem can be translated as follows: Poland still hasn’t perished as long as we live (Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła póki my żyjemy). Poland will survive this tragedy, but one has to wonder why the Poles have suffered so much over the centuries. My heart goes out to them at this time of national mourning.
My understanding of the crash is that Lech Kaczynski ordered the pilot to go ahead and land. He didn’t want to be late for or miss the event. The pilot should have protested and maybe he did, who knows. But still it is a sad event.