Whereas Poland’s President Lech Kaczyński and 95 other
people, including Poland’s First Lady, deputy foreign minister, deputy defense
minister, dozens of members of Parliament, the chiefs of the army and navy,
other chiefs of the Polish armed forces, and the president of the national
bank, were killed when the President’s airliner, a Tupelov TU–154M, crashed
near Smolensk, Russia on April 10, 2010;
Whereas Anna Walentynowicz, the former dock worker whose
firing in 1980 sparked the Solidarity strike that ultimately overthrew the
communist government of Poland, was also killed in the crash;
Whereas Ryszard Kaczorowski, who served as Poland’s final
president in exile before the country’s return to democracy, also perished in
the crash;
Whereas Chicago suffered the loss of a respected artist
when Wojciech Seweryn, whose father was killed in Katyn, died in the
crash;
Whereas this tragedy occurred as the Polish delegation was
on its final approach to land in order to attend an historic ceremony to
publically commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre of
1940;
Whereas, in 1940, the Soviet secret police, the People’s
Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), was directed by Joseph Stalin to
systematically murder approximately 22,000 Polish military officers, prisoners,
and intellectuals;
Whereas, on September 18, 1951, the House of
Representatives established the Select Committee to Conduct an Investigation
and Study of the Facts, Evidence, and Circumstances of the Katyn Forest
Massacre;
Whereas, on December 22, 1952, the Select Committee
unanimously concluded in its final report that the Soviet NKVD committed the
mass murders of the Polish officers and intellectual leaders in the Katyn
Forest, stating, there has not been a scintilla of proof or even any
remote circumstantial evidence presented that could indict any other nation in
this international crime
;
Whereas the Soviet Union did not admit responsibility for
this atrocity until President Mikhail Gorbachev’s statement on April 13,
1990;
Whereas the attendance of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
was to be the first time ever that a Russian leader attended the Katyn
commemoration;
Whereas more than 9,000,000 Americans of Polish descent
now reside in the United States and Polish-Americans have been leaders in all
walks of American life;
Whereas the American people stood in support of the
Solidarity movement as it fought against the oppression of the communist
government of Poland through peaceful means, eventually leading to Solidarity
members being elected to office in open democratic elections held on June 4,
1989, events that helped spark the movement to democracy throughout eastern
Europe;
Whereas Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) in 1999, joined the European Union in 2004, and has
contributed to United States and NATO operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan;
Whereas Poland has enjoyed a thriving and prosperous free
market democracy since the end of the Cold War; and
Whereas the United States and Poland are close allies,
with a shared bond of history, friendship, and international cooperation: Now,
therefore, be it
That the House of Representatives—
(1)honors the memory of Poland’s President,
national leaders, and cultural leaders who were killed in the tragic plane
crash at Smolensk, Russia on April 10, 2010;
(2)expresses its
deepest sympathies to the people of Poland and the families of those who
perished in the April 10, 2010, plane crash;
(3)expresses strong
and continued solidarity with the people of Poland and all persons of Polish
descent; and
(4)expresses unwavering support for the
Government of Poland as it works to overcome the loss of many key public
officials and as it continues to seek information regarding the plane crash on
April 10, 2010.