Poland Mourns

President Lech Kaczynski and Maria Kaczynska have been buried with the highest Polish honours in Cracow.

Some memories of people whom I knew on the doomed flight to Smolensk.

Such as former young communist Jerzy Smajdzinski who adapted well to democracy and rose to become Poland Defence Minister. I recall him chuckling over lunch with another former hardened Leftist, UK Defence Secretary John Reid, as they mused on their shared youthful fascination with Gramsci-style dialectics and their current senior roles in the NATO alliance. He was to run as centre left candidate in the 2010 Polish Presidential elections.

And Janusz Kochanowski, Polish Ombudsman, who supported a senior UK mediation event at the Royal Castle in Warsaw and had many distinguished British connections.

Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish President-in-Exile, who was honoured by HM The Queen during the State Visit to London of President Kwasniewski in 2004. 

Grazyna Gesicka, one of the impressive group of PiS women MPs and a huge expert on EU processes, who joined me at the Residence in Warsaw for lunch to brief me on the mysteries of how Poland planned to try to spend its European Union funds.

Mariusz Handzlik, an unfailingly cheerful and positive senior member of the President’s office, who worked closely with the Embassy on many visits and policy issues – at one of my final lunches at the Residence in Warsaw I tried to explain to him what Gordon Brown’s move to No 10 might mean for UK/Polish relations. Our mutual friend Ryan Bromley has set up a website in his memory.

Stas Komorowski, previously one of the best Ambassadors in London. After years of battling he regained his family home on the edge of Warsaw which had been confiscated by the communists (to do that he had to buy new dwellings for the families living there), and he and his wife Ewa hosted a beautiful annual garden party there. He was a strong, principled and effective negotiator for Polish interests at the MFA then Defence Ministry.

Izabela Tomaszewska, the ever-correct, friendly and courteous woman who led Maria Kazcynska’s office.

And, of course, Lech and Maria Kaczynski themselves.

Maria Kaczynska was charming, modest, very private and sincere. She came to the Residence in June 2007 for one of our last diplomatic receptions, an exhibition of portraits by Basia Hamilton:

Finally, Lech Kaczynski.

One of his main policy themes as President was the idea that modern Europe and the EU had evolved without Poland playing its rightful part in defining modern European consciousness – thanks to Yalta, Poland had been locked up and held back. So Europe just had to adjust itself to the new reality that Poland was rejoining the European mainstream – and determined to assert its rights. He made these points on various occasions with wit but determination to EU Ambassadors.

I accompanied the President to London and Scotland on an official visit to the UK, and saw him in action publicly and privately. He made a strong impression with his grasp of detail and phenomenal memory. His speech in London covered a large number of policy points about Poland and Europe, and included all sorts of sub-paragraphs and sub-sub-paragraphs as he picked his way through numerous subtle arguments – all with scarcely a note.

During that 2006 visit the UK media picked up on the ‘feckless Poles’ slip by his Polish interpreter; the President crossly blamed the British press for not translating his words accurately.

My wife and I returned to Warsaw from Scotland with the President and Mrs Kaczynska on the President’s plane – presumably the one which crashed at Smolensk.