Hundreds of thousands in Warsaw for President Lech Kaczynski's Memorial Service

Hundreds of thousands of Poles have crowded into a square in central Warsaw for a memorial service honouring the victims of the Smolensk plane crash that claimed the lives of the Polish president, his wife and dozens of the nation's elite.

A sombre procession of thousands upon thousands of mourners from
all over Poland made their way to Pilsudski Square Photo: AP

From The Telegraph
By Matthew Day

Jaroslaw Kaczynski (3rd L), brother, and Marta (4th left), daughter of the late President Lech Kaczynski during the memorial ceremony Photo: REUTERS

The memorial ceremony for the 96 victims of the plane crash in Smolensk Photo: REUTERS

Polish President Lech Kaczynski died in a plane crash in Russia Photo: AFP

Russian rescuers inspect the wreckage of the Polish government Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft which crashed near Smolensk airport Photo: AFP/GETTY

In a day of high emotion, air-raid and police sirens wailed across the city at midday for two minutes as Poles, some weeping, stood still in memory of 96 who died in the tragedy. Earlier in the day the sirens had signalled the exact time, 8:56, when the aircraft carrying president Kaczynski had crashed as it approached Smolensk airport in western Russia.

A sombre procession of thousands upon thousands of mourners from all over Poland made their way to Pilsudski Square, a place of deep symbolic significance for Poles as it was there that Pope John Paul II delivered a sermon in 1979 that inspired them to rise up against communism.

“Things like this never happen, they are impossible. It is the greatest tragedy in the history of Poland since World War II,” Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, told the assembled mourners.

“None of us can remember an incident when so many great and important people died in one tragic moment. The list of those who died comes from the whole of Poland, and that list is Polish history.”

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