Kaczynski to be buried at Wawel ?!

No.

Have some respect, plk...

I agree with you, but no need for this name..

And you, Filios?

Polish-Greek mongrel ;)

Mongrels are good ;)

sure, sure.. lol


i think you're off your rocker, bud... the post you read here aren't full of hatred but reality.. kaczka should not be buried at either wawel or the cathedral in warsaw... that would be extremely disrespectful to the people buried there.


no he didn't...


that was his nick during life, why not call him that now.. i find it extremely disrespectful to even consider burying him at wawel.. extremely.. actually pisses me off

Well, the way I see it... what difference is there between Kings and Presidents? Both leaders of a country.

Second of all, Kaczynski is arguably the first post WW2 president to not have communist ties, and actually go after ingrained commies in the government etc...

Third, he was integral part of Solidarnosc movememnt, great patriot etc...

I mean, there are some kings in Wawel that really did not do that much during a short reign... I still don't agree with him being buried there. Warsaw is much more suitable... but again, I can see the reasoning.


Are you also one? :)

Wow! So Well Worth Repeating...


This, in my opinion, is one of the best posts to this forum...EVER.

if president kaczynski is to be buried in wawel, maybe this could be looked upon as a symbol of the enormity of this tragedy and its connection to katyn. not saying it should be him!

As an English man who has lived in Poland for a number of years and with a Polish girlfriend I find it rather hard to watch what is going on in Poland right now. It rather reminds me of the out pouring of emotion that took place in Britain after the death of Princess Diana, all a bit over the top in my opinion. Yes a terrible tragedy, but there is no way this man deserves to be laid to rest in the Wawel. Lets remember he was a right wing, homophobe, who was incredibly retrograde and backward looking. Yes I'm not surprised Americans liked him as he was a keen supporter of the missle defense shield that thankfully has now been killed off by a more moderate president in the US. I actually dont think Poles are going far enough in this matter, there is no need to keep your feelings hidden for the sake of national unity. I didnt think much of the man himself, but of course recognise that the loss of nearly a hundred lives is an awful tragedy for the country and anyone with an ounce of humanity. This is nothing to do with unity it is to do with history and maintaining some sort of persepective, and standing up for what you believe to be right and correct. Let us not let a tragedy blind our judgement, I think if most Poles were honest with themseleves they would not say this was a great man or a great president (after all his ratings in the poles were a lowly 20%) give him the honour befitting of a head of state and bury him in warsaw cathedral or something, but not the wawel.

Oh just another thought, were would you bury him if he had died of say a heart attack?

Point proven, case closed!

Sorry I'm fired up about this matter. Sign the protests, block the streets; once he's in there you'll never get him out!?!

Jarosław's and Marta's decision

As a mere resident I'm totally neutral on the subject, but my wife, her family and all our friends say this is the wrong decision. He was undoubtedly a Polish patriot and was instrumental in bringing the freedoms Poles enjoy today. But did he do enough to warrant this privilege? They say not.

This is no place for neutrality!?! :)

If he is put in the Wawel, and it looks like he will be, I think in 5,10,15yrs time, hell maybe even in 6 months time, people will realise it has been an emotional over reaction and a PR coup organised by his brother. There is no way this man deserves to be in there, history will be the greatest judge.

Does anyone know if any protests or roadblocks are planned?

It's outrageous that this bigot will be buried among Poland's heroes. Of course what happened was a tragedy, but it's very possible that it was Kaczynski himself that ordered his pilot to disobey Russian air traffic control instructions - he had a documented history of demanding landings in unsafe conditions. He may very well have caused the deaths of all those people.

I say again, does anyone know if any protests or roadblocks are planned?

I'm neutral because as an English resident it's not my buisness. This is a Polish issue that should be decided by Poles.

That would be supremely tasteless.

Just voice your opinion and move on.

Striving to preserve the dignity and gravity of the Wawel is "supremely tasteless"? What if the analysis of the Black Boxes reveals that Kaczynski ordered the landing against all expert opinion? What if his documented recklessness caused all those deaths? What then, when he's already buried in Poland's most sacred place?

If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands!

Cute. Staying on topic however,

In August 2008, a different pilot of Kaczyński's plane, Grzegorz Pietruczuk, was pressured by the president when he refused to land in Tbilisi during the South Ossetian war between Georgia and Russia.[58][59] During that incident, Pietruczuk was asked by the president's staff to change the flight plan and land in Tbilisi.[60] After consulting with the commander of his unit, Pietruczuk refused, justifying his decision by safety concerns. He was then visited in the cockpit by Kaczynski himself, who tried to convince him to change his mind. Kaczynski later told journalists that "the Polish officer should not be cowardly". Nevertheless, Pietruczuk held his ground and the plane landed in Azerbaijan as planned. A few weeks after this incident Pietruczuk was decorated by the defense minister for following correct procedures in this case and keeping the safety of his passengers utmost in his mind.[60] Pietruczuk continued to fly the president's plane after the incident, even after Kaczynski expressed unhappiness with his performance during the flight to Tbilisi.[61] Grzegorz Hołdanowicz, a leading Polish defence analyst, stated his belief that in Smolensk, the pilot Captain Arkadiusz Protasiuk would have been under pressure to land, despite advice from air traffic control to the contrary.[59]

"It's a clear case of VIP-passenger syndrome," flight safety expert Viktor Timoshkin "Air-traffic control told him to take the plane to Moscow or Minsk. I'm certain that the pilot will have told the President about this, and got a firm reply that the plane must land in Smolensk."[62][63]

£ukasz, at the moment this is only Viktor Timoshkin's opinion. It could be just as possible that the the president asked the pilot if he thought he could land. We just don't know yet.

Precisely. Which is one reason why it's a mistake to enshrine him in the Wawel. We don't yet know who caused that tragedy, although the August 2008 incident casts reasonable suspicion upon Mr. Kaczynski.

Another good point.

Again, it wouldn't be odd to attempt an approach. If the pilot arrived at minimums, he would have performed a missed approach and then attempted it again, at which point there would have been pressure to put the plane down. I just think that it's highly unlikely that the pilot would have been pressured to put the plane down on the first approach.

Yes I do agree
I`m from Poland and my heart is bleeding that Kaczynski will be buried at Wawel (I`m from Cracow)
You must be Pole to understand how important Wawel is to us!!
Why they are doing this just cannot believe
Till crash he was not very popular (only 20% like him) he was not a good president at all, always arguing always not happy
Why suddenly he is our hero don’t know- media I think doing that
If he was a good patriot he would never let someone to buried him at Wawel
His brother is crazy and he is not a patriot because he wants him to be buried there
Wawel is only for special people and Kaczynski was less than average

Pick the odd one out.

Kosciuszko, Sobieski, Jadwiga, Kaczynski, Sikorski, Poniatowski...

Question to all:
When Lech Walesa will die, where do you think he would/should be buried ?

Wherever he specifies beforehand.

If you are really not happy about it, you must do something. Make your views known, and not just on forums like this.

Yes you are right, the presidents death seems to be overshadowing the deaths of some
great brave people on that flight including the Commander of the Special Forces, who I know people of Krakow adored. These should be the ones that are burried in the Wawel.

Well, I can actually see a reason for it as he served his country with his death probably better than he ever did alive.

As I learned in years during my time here on PF history/Katyn matters enormously for Poles, regardless where they come from. This catastrophe he and so many others paid with their lives for made now actually sure/hammered home to all news agencies and millions of people world wide what happened in the woods of Smolensk 70 years back. Something he and many other Poles fighted for without much success for years already...that is an achievement!

It was a high price to pay and quite unvoluntarily but still...

Very disappointing.
Instead of not allowing him in Wawel, about the only honorable solutions (now that the bishops screwed up) would be for Warsovians to insist on burying him in the city he loved, a city where he lived. After all he was a president of Warsaw.