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Warsaw Insurgents meet with Polish President

PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea 30.07.2016 15:08
Insurgents of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 have met with Polish President Andrzej Duda, ahead of Monday’s anniversary of the struggle’s outbreak.
Photo: PAP/Jakub KamińskiPhoto: PAP/Jakub Kamiński

“The Warsaw Uprising is a monument of our memory and its insurgents are our greatest treasure,” Duda said in his speech.

Both the Polish President and insurgents noted that the Warsaw Rising Museum was an initiative of late President Lech Kaczyński.

Leszek Żukowski, President of the World Association of Home Army Soldiers said that Kaczyński “also established the tradition of meeting here with insurgents.”

Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz said that “the identity of contemporary Warsaw will always grow out of history, of the debris of the destroyed city and attitude of its residents.”

Vice-President of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Remembrance Association, Zbigniew Galperyn, spoke about the trial of 99-year-old Zbigniew Ścibor-Rylski, an issue which has sparked controversies in recent days.

The Institute of National Rememebrance (IPN), the state body charged with investigating crimes against Polish citizens, has accused him of concealing the fact he cooperated with Poland's post-war secret police

“This case has outraged us,” Galperyn said.

“Maintaining contacts (by general Ścibor-Rylski), as a Home Army intelligence officer with the communist security service, took place under orders of superiors.”

Veteran Zbigniew Galperyn added that “the aim was to obtain information for the Home Army,” the dominant Polish resistance movement during World War II.

“Many of my colleagues escaped arrest thanks to him!,” Galperyn said.

The trial of the 99-year-old general is pending before a regional court in Warsaw. Ścibor-Rylski is subject to vetting as a member of the Chapter of the War Order of Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest military decoration.

Experts will now examine whether the general’s poor health allows him to take part in the proceedings.

Documents held by IPN have sparked a series of controversies in recent years, with ongoing public debates about the role of alleged collaborators, among them former Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and writer Ryszard Kapuścinski.

Politicians and public servants are obliged to declare whether or not they had dealings with the communist secret services, a law that has itself proved controversial. (ał)

Source: IAR

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