Elaborate state funeral for Poland’s first couple
By VANESSA GERA (AP)
18/04/10

KRAKOW, Poland – An elaborate state funeral for Poland’s President
Lech Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, began Sunday bereft of many world
leaders whose travel plans were paralyzed by the plume of volcanic ash
that has covered Europe.

The couple’s bodies were flown from Warsaw to Krakow early Sunday for
the tradition-laden ceremony and burial in the nearby Wawel Cathedral,
the final resting place for Poland’s kings, poets and statesmen,
including Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski, the exiled World War II leader who
perished in a mysterious plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.

President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel were among the leaders who canceled at the
last minute because of the expanding volcanic ash cloud, dangerous to
airplane engines, that has enveloped Europe and closed nearly all of
the continent’s airports since late Thursday.

"All the French people will be, in their thoughts, with the Polish
people" on Sunday, Sarkozy said in a letter sent to acting president
Bronislaw Komorowski expressing his regret for being unable to attend.

The volcanic ash did not deter everyone. The leaders of Baltic and
Balkan states, came by car for the stately event.

Polish police estimated the number of mourners in and around Krakow at
nearly 150,000.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew by plane from Moscow for the
funeral. His presence was further sign of the warming ties between the
two countries, which had been strained for centuries, and recently
because of communism and the 1940 Katyn massacre.

Krakow Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz acknowledged those ties in remarks
to the congregation, noting that the tragedy had given rise "to many
layers of good between the people and nations."

"The sympathy and help we have received from Russian brothers has
breathed new life into a hope for closer relations and reconciliation
between our two Slavic nations," Dziwisz said. "I direct these words
to the President of Russia."

Despite the dearth of global dignitaries, no one said the funeral
should be postponed.

"I wouldn’t move the funeral," said Bartek Kargol who was among
thousands of people waiting for the event Krakow. "This event is for
our president."

Christian Stoltner, a German student, said Poles need their time to mourn.

"One cannot do anything about the fact that there are ashes around
now," he said. "The date was set and momentum was built and slowly
it’s time to find closure."

The funeral Mass was held at St. Mary’s Basilica, a 13th-century
red-brick Gothic church set on a vast market square in Krakow’s Old
Town.

Inside, scores of Poland’s political elite were seated in the ancient
pews, shoulder to shoulder with leaders from Estonia, Belarus,
Armenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine.

The Mass was led by Dziwisz. The Kaczynskis’ daughter, Marta, and the
president’s twin brother, Jaroslaw, sat in the front row as Mozart’s
Requiem was played.

After the Mass, the bodies of the first couple were to be carried in a
funeral procession across the picturesque Renaissance old town and up
the Wawel hill, the historic seat of kings where a fortress wall
encircles a castle and 1,000-year-old cathedral overlooking the
Vistula River.

The funeral was eight days after the Polish Air Force Tupolev 154
crashed on approach to Smolensk, Russia, killing the first couple and
94 others.

After an all-night vigil at St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw, the bodies
of the couple were driven slowly through Warsaw past places linked to
Kaczynski’s life, including city hall, where he served as mayor of
Warsaw, and a museum he championed on the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

They were then flown by military transport to Krakow, below the
volcanic ash plume. As their funeral cortege made its way to St.
Mary’s, thousands of mourners lined the streets and many tossed
bouqets of flowers on the hearses.

Ahead of the Mass, scores of people flocked to a memorial at the base
of Wawel hill to pay tribute to those who died, leaving flowers and
candles.

Pictures of Kaczynski and his wife, as well as other victims, could be
seen amid candles and flowers left by mourners who came to pay their
respects.

Last Saturday’s crash – which investigators in Russia and Poland have
said was likely because of human error – plunged the country into a
deep grief not seen since the death of Pope John Paul II five years
ago.

The plane went down in heavy fog after clipping a birch tree on
approach to Smolensk, Russia. Those aboard had planned to attend a
memorial for thousands of Polish army officers executed in 1940 by
Josef Stalin’s secret police.

The first couple will be laid to rest together in a honey-hued
sarcophagus made from Turkish alabaster in a crypt of the cathedral
and it will be open to mourners after the ceremonies Sunday.

The decision to bury Kaczynski at Wawel sparked protests in recent
days, with people saying that despite the national tragedy he still
does not belong in the company of some of the nation’s most august
figures.

Karolina Rajchel, 19, a student who traveled five hours from Wroclaw,
said she had not supported every step that Kaczynski took, but called
the protests "out of place" in light of his death.

"Kaczynski had good and bad qualities but now you shouldn’t say
anything bad about the dead," she said. "I am here to honor the
president as well as all those who died."

Among those buried there are Jozef Pilsudski; Romantic-era poet Adam
Mickiewicz; and Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a hero of the American Revolution
and of Poland’s 1794 uprising against Russia’s occupation.

AP Television News Producer Theodora Tongas and Associated Press
Writer Marta Kucharska contributed to this report.