Poland holds memorial for air crash victims

A man holds a portrait of late Polish President Lech Kaczynski during a public memorial service held on Pilsudski square in Warsaw yesterday for the 96 victims of last April 10's air crash in Smolensk that killed Poland's President Lech Kaczynski. More than 100,000 Polish mourners massed in Warsaw's historic main square at the emotional memorial service for president and 95 others who died in an air crash in Russia.Photo: AFP

Tens of thousands of mourners massed in a historic Warsaw square yesterday for a public memorial service for president Lech Kaczynski and the 95 others killed in an air crash a week ago.
The sombre ceremony came as a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland further disrupted air travel and threatened to keep world leaders, including US President Barack Obama, from Kaczynski's state funeral in Krakow on Sunday.
Sirens wailed at 8:56 am (0656 GMT) -- the exact minute when the presidential jet crashed in Russia last Saturday -- and again when the service started at noon, bringing cars and pedestrians to a halt in the streets.
A lone military bugler sounded a funeral air in front of the crowd thronging Pilsudski Square, the traditional site for national services such as the mass of late pope John Paul II when he visited his deeply Catholic homeland in 1979 after his elevation to the papacy.
An actor then solemnly read out the name of each victim, starting with Kaczynski and his wife Maria.
Considered Poland's worst peacetime tragedy, the air disaster scythed through the nation's political and military elite as they headed to a memorial for Polish officers massacred by Soviet forces in World War II.
"We needed to be here in this tragic time," said Jan Szylborski, who came from a small town on buses organised by Solidarity, the trade union that helped bring down communism in Poland in 1989 and in which Kaczynski was an activist.
"We're showing what values are important to us, Christian and patriotic values," Szylborski told AFP.