[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 31 (Monday, August 8, 1994)]
[Pages 1600-1601]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6709--50th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising

August 1, 1994

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

     On this day of remembrance, we pause together to recall the brutal 
path that has led to the triumph of freedom in Poland. We remember the 
brave men and women of the Polish Home Army who stood on the front lines 
of combat as their city was destroyed. We recall the children of Warsaw 
who braved sniper fire to deliver messages for the Resistance. We hold 
in our hearts the spirits of those who lost their lives. We grieve with 
their survivors. We speak to one another of those bloody days so that we 
may never know that sorrow again.
    A half-century ago, the residents of Warsaw, Poland, could scarcely 
imagine that their city would restore its playgrounds for children or 
its gardens for flowers. For 63 monstrous days of Nazi aggression, it 
seemed impossible that a Polish arsenal stockpiled with courage, faith, 
and solidarity could prevail against the tanks, machine guns, and 
bombers of Hitler's tyranny. But since that time, when it seemed 
unfathomable to the valiant citizens of Warsaw that they would ever 
recapture freedom's light, the people of Poland have emerged victorious. 
Fifty years later, the weapons of Nazi terror are lost to history. 
Solidarity inspires us still.
    Warsaw has earned the flowers that grace it today. Though battered 
by the chaos of the second World War and stifled by the strictures of 
the Cold War, the people of Poland have continued to rebuild their 
beloved capital. Brick by brick, building by building, the beauty and 
majesty that defined Warsaw for centuries are being reborn to a 
generation

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of Poles who have just recently discovered the blessings of freedom.
    The courage and hope that carried their parents and grandparents 
through the darkest days of the 1944 uprising remain. The legacy of that 
battle stirs today's residents to embrace the challenges of liberty. And 
on the strength of that tradition, democracy now thrives in Warsaw.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the 
Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 1, 
1994, as the 50th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. I call upon the 
people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate 
ceremonies and activities.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of 
August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and of 
the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
nineteenth.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:56 a.m., August 2, 
1994]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on August 
3.