President opens General Sikorski exhibition

President Komorowski admires painting of Gen. Sikorski: photo - PAP/Jakub Kamiński

In his remarks during the opening ceremony, President Bronisław Komorowski described Poland's WW II leader as a symbol of both the nation's struggle for independence and of the drama and defeat in that struggle.

The president added that Sikorski’s death in a plane crash near Gibraltar in 1943in a “was undoubtedly one of the elements of the collapse of the so-called 'Polish cause' […] resulting in the Yalta and Potsdam agreements and all the decisions which limited Poland’s independence.”

Entitled ‘Władysław Sikorski – general, prime minister, commander’, the exhibition contains over 100 objects, such as military distinctions, uniforms, items of personal use, documents, sabres, as well as his portraits and drawings.

The exhibition gives a comprehensive picture of Sikorski’s activities, from his participation in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 to the years 1939-43, when he served as supreme commander of the Polish armed forces and prime minister of the London-based government-in-exile set up after the Nazi German and Soviet invasion of Poland.

The exhibition coincides with the 70th anniversary of Sikorski’s death when a British Royal Air Force plane crashed into the sea second after take-ff from a British base in Gibraltar.

Sikorski was 62 years-old at the time. The Czech pilot, the sole survivor of 17 people abroad, told an RAF inquiry days later that his controls jammed, though it was never established why the technical failure occurred, leading to many conspiracy theories about the cause of the disaster. (mk/pg)

source: PAP