Ceremonies in Poland Mark Start of WWII
By VOA News
01 September 2009
Officials from across Europe and the United States were among thousands of people who gathered in northern Poland Tuesday to mark the beginning of World War II, 70 years ago.
President Lech Kaczynski attends ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the beginning of WW II at the Monument of Westerplatte Defenders, in Gdansk, 1 Sept 2009
Ahead of the international commemoration, Polish leaders met before dawn on Gdansk＇s Westerplatte peninsula for a ceremony at the exact time the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein shelled a tiny Polish military outpost, opening the war.
Polish political and religious leaders recalled the sacrifices their countrymen made in the struggle against the overwhelming forces of Hitler＇s Germany.
Later in the day, officials including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin came together in Gdansk for other ceremonies to pay tribute to the tens of millions who lost their lives in the war.
In remarks to reporters Tuesday, Mr. Putin said Poles and Russians fought a common enemy. He acknowledged that the two countries had what he called, "problems in history," and said they must carefully be discussed.
In a letter published Monday in Poland＇s Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, Mr. Putin condemned the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty between Russia and Germany as immoral.
The pact secretly split the Baltics and parts of eastern Europe, including Poland, between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Historians say the agreement encouraged Germany to invade Poland on September 1, 1939, setting off the war.
|
|
