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Last president of exiled Polish government to be exhumed

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 20.10.2012 13:06
Ryszard Kaczorowski, a victim of the 2010 Smolensk air disaster and last president of the Polish-government-in-exile is to be exhumed on Monday as his remains may have been confused with those of another victim.
Last president of the government-in-exile  Ryszard Kaczorowski: photo wikipediaLast president of the government-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski: photo wikipedia

President
President Ryszard Kaczorowski: photo wikipedia

Kaczorowski's remains will be exhumed together with those of a second male victim, whose identity has not been disclosed.

The exhumations follow the confirmation last month that two other crash victims, including the late Solidarity activist Anna Walentynowicz, were buried in the wrong graves.

Last week Dr Viktor Kolkutin, the Russian doctor in charge of the identifications of victims, claimed that his team's work could not be held responsible.

“I can only say that absolutely everyone received what they identified,” Dr Viktor Kolkutin told the Polish edition of Newsweek.

“What happened after the coffins departed from Moscow to Poland we do not know,” he said.

“We did not lead the coffins to the graves where they were laid to rest,” he said.

Kolkutin noted that relatives of the victims were “in shock” during the identification process, and that almost a third of the 96 victims were not easily recognisable.

The last president in London

Ryszard Kaczorowski was born in 1919 in the city of Bialystok, north east Poland, an area that was occupied by the the Soviets in 1939 during the first phase of World War II.

He was arrested in 1940 as a leader of the so-called Szare Szeregi (The Grey Ranks) a scouting group that worked in tandem with the Polish resistance.

Kaczorowski was deported to Siberia but later freed by an amnesty the following year, alongside thousands of other internees.

He joined the army that was being formed in Russia by General Wladyslaw Anders, who had himself been freed from internment by the Soviets.

The so-called Polish Second Corps journeyed to Iran, where it regrouped and joined the fight against the Nazis as part of the British 8th Army.

Kaczorowski fought in several battles in Italy, including Monte Cassino.

After the war he did not return to Poland, as did the majority of Anders' veterans, owing to the installation of a communist regime in his homeland.

He settled in UK, where the Polish government-in-exile was based.

He was elected president in 1989, having previously served as a minister.

Nevertheless, owing to the collapse of the Iron Curtain, his term was short-lived, and he returned the presidential insignia to Poland in December 1990 in a ceremony at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

He was a regular visitor to Poland, as an honoured guest of the republic, taking part in countless events.

The 2010 Smolensk crash occurred when President Lech Kaczynski's delegation flew to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Crime, in tribute to over 22,000 Polish officers executed in WWII by the Soviet secret police (NKVD).

Following the Smolensk air disaster, Kaczorowski was laid to rest in Warsaw's national pantheon, the Temple of Divine Providence.

Five victims of the crash have been exhumed thus far and wo turned out to have been buried in the wrong grave. (nh)



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