WWII ceremonies begin in Poland

01 September 2009 | 03:30:25 PM | Source: AFP

POLAND-WW-II-ANNIVERS_090109_AP_B_667254082

Leaders of two dozen nations from both sides in the war gathered at the memorial to the Westerplatte defenders.

Polish leaders, diplomats and veterans gathered before the dawn in Westerplatte near
Gdansk to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.
    
Exactly 70 years ago at 4:45am, a Nazi German battleship opened fire on a Polish fort in Westerplatte on the Baltic Sea, and World War II began.
    
The fort's 180 defenders put up heroic resistance for a week against 3,500 German soldiers.
    
The shells of the Schleswig-Holstein that Friday, September 1, 1939, were the trigger for a global conflict which was to claim 50 million lives, including six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

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Leaders
    
Leaders of two dozen nations from both sides in the war -- including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- were to gather on Tuesday in the ruins of the Westerplatte fort to remember the beginning of history's bloodiest conflict, whose legacy endures and divides to this day.
    
"We are here to remember who in that war was the aggressor and who was the victim, for without an honest memory neither Europe, nor Poland, nor the world will ever live in security," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared at the pre-dawn ceremony.
    
Polish President Lech Kaczynski recalled that on September 17 1939 "Bolshevik Russia stuck a knife in the back of Poland", occupying its eastern territories under the German-Soviet Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Poland
    
In Poland, "the night of occupation was marked by the Jewish Holocaust, but also by the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn", carried out by Stalin's political police, Kaczynski said.
    
The main commemoration ceremony in Westerplatte was to be attended on Tuesday afternoon by some 20 heads of government including representatives of the then belligerents, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
    
Among the guests will be the prime ministers of France, Italy, Ukraine and Sweden, current president of the European Union.
    
The US Administration will be represented by National Security Adviser James Jones.
    
The speeches by Merkel and Putin will be given special attention in Poland where diverging interpretations of World War II are weighing heavily on the anniversary ceremonies.
   
 

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