Expressing Sympathy For The People Of Poland

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I also want to join Senator Reid in acknowledging the cosponsors of this resolution, and I am sure this list will grow as our colleagues come forward and ask to be added, but I thank Senator Johanns for joining me in this effort. I give special thanks to Senator Mikulski. We know of her pride in her Polish heritage and we know of her deep respect for the people of Poland and our shared grief over the loss to that great nation. Senators KERRY, VOINOVICH, BROWN of Ohio, CARDIN, and others have also joined me in considering this resolution.

I come to the floor of the Senate, Mr. President, with a heavy heart. I express my sympathy to the people of Poland and to Ambassador Kupiecki who is here representing them. I shared a moment with him earlier this morning and mentioned that when I heard the news of this tragic loss, my thoughts went back immediately to 47 years ago when we lost our President, John Kennedy, and what it meant to our Nation and how devastating it was. This city ground to a halt on that day, and the bells began to peal in the church towers all across Washington every hour on the hour as our Nation reflected on its great loss. It was a time of great sadness, as it should have been in our history, and as I am sure it is now in Poland, as people reflect on the morning of Saturday, April 10, when a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria, and 94 other high-ranking government, military and civilian leaders crashed while traveling to a memorial service in Russia that was to recognize and memorialize the dreadful Katyn massacre.

The tragic accident is a devastating loss to the Nation of Poland and to their friends around the world. This photo I brought to the floor shows literally thousands of Poles who gathered in Warsaw on Saturday evening to remember those who died. They were outside St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw grieving for the loss of their President and so many leaders of their nation.

The pain of this sad moment is felt around the world but especially in the city of Chicago, which I am honored to represent. It is home to more Polish American families than anywhere else in the United States. And what a proud heritage they bring to our city, our State, and our Nation; what a contribution they have made. The grief they feel today is a grief we share.

Yesterday, as I mentioned, my fellow Senators joined me in offering this resolution. The United States and Poland share a strong bond of history, friendship, and international cooperation. Polish Americans have become leaders in all walks of life. In the Senate, Senator Mikulski and others of Polish heritage have shown that their contribution to America continues to this day. We joined with Poland in our Revolutionary War, and we are so grateful for those Poles who, like Casimir Pulaski and others, stepped forward and joined us in our effort to gain independence. When the time came many decades later, and Poland was seeking its own independence after the Solidarity movement, the United States stood by their side.

We know President Kaczynski was part of that effort, and we know he was in fact interred in prison because he fought for democracy in Poland. He was respected throughout his country for the role he played and the leadership he brought to this modern, free, democratic Poland today. We have stood by Poland as the Solidarity movement grew into a strong, vibrant democracy. We have supported Poland's membership in NATO, so that we are joint allies in an effort to defend the values we share and in the European Union where they have become a modern economy and a major leader in Europe. Poland also stood by the United States as well in our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As Poles struggle to come to terms with this week's tragedy, the United States will stand with them and will support their government as it works to overcome the loss of so many of its great leaders.

President and Mrs. Kaczynski and their delegation were on a mission to try, so many years later, to close a deep wound to the Polish people of the Katyn massacre of World War II, where more than 20,000 Poles were executed by Soviet secret police and buried in mass graves in that forest. As the Ambassador said to me this morning, that Katyn Forest is a holy and a cursed place because now this tragedy is added onto the memory of the loss that took place so many years ago.

Russia and Poland have begun to deal with this tragedy, and that is a positive thing. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently joined Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at a ceremony marking that tragedy. Prime Minister Putin--the first Russian leader to attend that memorial service--said:

We bow our heads to those who bravely met death here.

This was the beginning of the closure of a critical chapter in the history of those two nations. This is the beginning of healing, which is long overdue. Sadly, the Katyn tragedy has now been compounded by the loss of so many of Poland's leaders who were destined to head to this location in memory of those who had fallen.

Aboard the plane were some of Poland's highest military and civilian leaders--the Deputy Foreign Minister, the Chiefs of the Army and Navy, the president of the national bank, and dozens of Members of Parliament. Two prominent civilian leaders aboard the plane were Wojciech Seweryn and Anna Walentynowicz.

Seweryn was an artist from Chicago and an influential member of Chicago's Polish community. Mr. Seweryn's father died at Katyn, and it soon became his life's passion to honor his father's memory with beautiful memorials that he had built in the United States and in the location of the Katyn Forest. What a bitter irony that he would lose his life journeying to this memorial occasion. Throughout his life he brought awareness to the Katyn tragedy. He led an effort in the Chicago area to construct a memorial in remembrance of the Katyn massacre at St. Adalbert Cemetery, which Poland's President Kaczynski was planning to visit in just a few weeks.

Anna Walentynowicz was a famous civilian leader and a former dock worker whose firing in 1980 sparked the Solidarity strike that ultimately overthrew the Polish Communist government. Due in part to her inspiration, Poland has emerged as a thriving and prosperous free market democracy since the end of the Cold War.

Poland shares a state partnership program with my home State's National Guard, a partnership that has been in place since shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is one of the many partnerships our Illinois National Guard has with former Warsaw Pact member nations. Since 1993, hundreds of Illinois National Guard members have participated in exchanges with Polish forces in cooperative efforts supporting the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other military training and exchanges.

Among those killed in last week's tragedy are officers who were well known to the Illinois National Guard. Several troops in the Illinois Guard have served under the officers who were on President Kaczynski's aircraft. These fine soldiers are in the thoughts of all the people of Illinois and the 13,000 men and women of the Illinois National Guard today.

On Saturday I visited the Polish Consulate in Chicago to pay my respects and leave my regards in the condolence book. People were starting to flock to this site, people in Chicago, driving with Polish flags proudly displayed over their vehicles, to come to this consulate to express their own sorrow for this loss, to join in the long line signing the condolence book, and to leave flowers at the flagpole bearing the Polish flag right outside of the consulate.

I have such admiration for the people of Poland who have endured so many trials and struggles. What has brought them through time and again is faith and family, and those two enduring qualities will help them as they try to cope with this massive crisis that is facing their country.

As the ambassador said to me this morning, there is no doubt that Poland will emerge strong; that this government is going to be stable; that it is going to move forward. He can count as well that we will be at his side and the side of the people of Poland as they rebuild their government and their nation from this tragedy.

I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring of this measure and support passage of the resolution which we just considered on the floor of the Senate.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland. She is of proud Polish heritage. When she spoke of her grandmother coming to Fells Point in Baltimore, I couldn't help but think of my grandmother coming to that same place, 99 years go, from Lithuania, to become part of this American family. I would like to acknowledge, too, on behalf of many who followed her, our gratitude to Poland over the years. Poland was first to democracy in the region, and stood by the Baltic States, particularly Lithuania, their neighbor, as they reached their own level of democracy and freedom.

The Senator from Maryland will be heartened to know that we have just been notified by the cloakrooms that all 100 Senators have asked to be added as cosponsors of this resolution, to show our solidarity with the people of Poland.

I thank the ambassador for his attendance this morning and hope he will express to his government and the people of his country our profound grief at his loss and our determination that our strong friendship with Poland continues.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence a quorum.

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