{"id":18323,"date":"2010-04-10T14:39:23","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T12:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=18323"},"modified":"2014-01-05T18:49:56","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T16:49:56","slug":"queen-offers-sympathy-to-poland-after-presidents-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/04\/10\/queen-offers-sympathy-to-poland-after-presidents-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen offers sympathy to Poland after president’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Queen has expressed her “deepest sympathy” to the Polish government and people after the death of President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Gordon Brown said the whole world would be “saddened” and Tory leader David Cameron called it a “black day”.<\/p>\n

Rev Canon Bronislaw Gostomski, a priest at a Polish church in West London, was among those who died in the crash.<\/p>\n

Members of the community in London are gathering at a Polish cultural centre in Hammersmith to lay flowers.<\/p>\n

The president’s wife, Poland’s army chief, central bank governor, MPs and leading historians were among more than 80 passengers on board the flight.<\/p>\n

Officials say his aircraft came down as it tried to land in thick fog at Smolensk airport, western Russia.<\/p>\n

‘Just speechless’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Among the dead was the Rev Gostomski, the Polish president’s personal chaplain and the parish priest at St Andrew Bobola Polish Church in Shepherd’s Bush, west London.<\/p>\n

A colleague, Father Marek Reczek, told the BBC Rev Gostomski was a popular figure who had been in office for eight years.<\/p>\n

“It is a very difficult time for our parishioners. Many of them have been coming into the church to pray,” he said. “They have been crying.”<\/p>\n

He said a special mass to honour the memory of Rev Gostomski will be held next Tuesday at the church, starting at 1900.<\/p>\n

At the Polish Information Centre in Hammersmith, Szymon Nadolski said it did not matter if people supported the president.<\/p>\n

“They are still our president and intellectuals,” said the 30-year-old. “I think everybody will be united regardless of who they support.”<\/p>\n

Monika Skowronska, vice chairman of the Polish Social and Cultural Association, said she knew one of the passengers – Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last President of the Polish Government-in-Exile.<\/p>\n

“I’m in complete and utter shock. I am trying hard not to cry. People are just speechless,” she said.<\/p>\n

‘Biggest tragedy’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Members of the Polish community in the UK have been e-mailing the BBC since the news broke.<\/p>\n

Marcin, from London, said: “I was shocked when I discovered what happened in Smolensk this morning.<\/p>\n

“It is the biggest tragedy in the history of Poland, because so many very important people have died at the same time.”<\/p>\n

Many of the messages make reference to the purpose of the president’s visit to Russia.<\/p>\n

Maciej, also from London, said: “What makes this news more sad is that they were flying to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, which was such a blow to our nation.”<\/p>\n

The Katyn forest massacre was the mass murder of thousands of Polish officers and intellectuals, carried out by Soviet forces in 1940.<\/p>\n

Sabina Kubica, originally from Krakow but now living in Edinburgh, wrote: “I’m absolutely shocked and deeply sad. This might be one of the darkest days.”<\/p>\n

Mr Brown broke off from campaigning in Scotland to pay tribute to the Polish president.<\/p>\n

“I think the whole world will be saddened and in sorrow as a result of the tragic death in a plane crash of President Kaczynski and his wife Maria and the party that were with them,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We know the difficulties that Poland has gone through, the sacrifices that he himself made as part of the Solidarity movement.<\/p>\n

Mr Cameron said he was a “very brave Polish patriot who stood up for freedom”.<\/p>\n

“He suffered hugely under communism and always stood up for his beliefs, and for his great faith in his country,” he added.<\/p>\n

BBC<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Queen has expressed her “deepest sympathy” to the Polish government and people after the death of President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash. Gordon Brown said the whole world would be “saddened” and Tory leader David Cameron called it a “black day”. Rev Canon Bronislaw Gostomski, a priest at a Polish church in West […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":18324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,628,922],"tags":[50,2827,2829],"class_list":["post-18323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eu-members","category-poland-eu-members-european-countries-english","category-world","tag-poland","tag-polish-president","tag-queen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}