Death in the Forest

The year 2010 was difficult for Poland. The presidential plane crash on Saturday, April 10, at Smolensk airport, twenty kilometers from the Katyn Forest, claimed the lives of President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and ninety-four other public figures. The emotional impact of the accident, which took place as the official entourage arrived in Russia to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the Katyn Massacre—the 1940 assassination of Poland's officer corps—was profound. As if marking the event liturgically, an ash cloud from the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano floated all week over the funeral proceedings, preventing world leaders from participating in the ceremonies. In May and June historic flooding left swaths of Poland under water, the Vistula fording its banks across the country's plains. As event followed event, one began to have the impression that, two decades after Poland's historic rebirth in the June 1989 elections, a strange reckoning was taking place regarding the country's past, as well as its future. However, like an unfolding story in which difficult trials eventually lead, if not to a resolution, then at least to new perspectives, the end of the year saw a number of unforeseen developments—even if historical clarification is never as tidy or gratifying as what may be offered us by literature.

In Warsaw, in the hours immediately following the airplane accident, there was an outpouring of solidarity that spanned the political spectrum. Although quite a few of the passengers aboard Polish Air Force Tu-154M were from Kaczynski's Law and Justice party, many had other political affiliations, or had played important roles in Poland's history, the latter including Anna Walentynowicz, one of the founders of the Solidarity trade union. Others aboard were the commanders of the Air, Navy, and Ground forces, current and former members of the Senate and the Sejm, the last President-in-Exile, and the heads of a number of governmental organizations, including the central bank. Consequently, for the first days of mourning there was an unspoken policy of restraint, tacitly forbidding inter-party wrangling. During the afternoon hours following the announcement of the crash, crowds began to gather in front of the Presidential Palace, keeping vigil and depositing a veritable landmass of candles. On Tuesday, President Kaczynski's body was flown back to the capital. There, throughout the course of the week, he and his wife would lie in state. By Thursday, dense crowds filled almost the entire length of Warsaw's historic Krakowskie Przedmieście boulevard, masses of people awaiting their turn to file through the Presidential Palace and pay their last respects. Outside the gates, the volume of votive candles grew so immense—and generated so much heat—that it was necessary for them to be tended by volunteers in protective clothing. The sea of melting paraffin filled the air with a wholly disturbing odor that became one of the defining memories of the week. In those hours before the rhetoric of politics returned, one felt that the grief expressed was sincere. And it was as if the red and yellow honeycombs of flames—burning above body temperature—were a sharply poignant, if ultimately failed, attempt to reanimate those lying in state in the formal rooms beyond.

On Saturday at noon an official memorial service provided a focus for collective mourning. A large stage was erected in Piłsudski Square, a green park located a block away from the Presidential Palace. The stage's white risers, bordered by flowers, ascended to a long backdrop displaying black and white photographs of the deceased. The stage was bisected by a three-story-high white cross. As midday approached, buses arrived, moving slowly through the crowds, their windshields clearly marked with insignias specifying the political affiliations of the passengers. Following behind them was a vast procession: enlisted men from all branches of Poland's Army, Navy, and Air Forces, including cavalrymen in dress uniforms carrying lances, officials in velvet gowns and three-pointed hats, and foot soldiers in fur caps. As solemn as the occasion was, in the pale April light there were moments when it seemed...