Portraits of 2010 air crash victims on show in Warsaw
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
05.08.2018 12:00
An exhibition has opened in Warsaw featuring portraits of the victims of the 2010 plane crash which killed Poland's president and dozens of top officials.
Photo: PAP/Paweł Supernak
The exhibition of paintings by artist Małgorzata Wrochna, who died earlier this year, took three years to put together. It is on show at the Museum of Independence until September 7.
In a special letter, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said: "Without understanding the Smolensk tragedy, it is impossible to understand Polish history."
On 10 April 2010, a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczyński, his wife, and 94 others – mostly political and military top brass – crashed while trying to land at a military airport in Smolensk, western Russia.
According to a commission set up by Poland's governing Law and Justice (PiS) party to investigate the crash, the plane was probably destroyed by a mid-air explosion and Russian air traffic controllers deliberately misled Polish pilots about their location as the presidential plane was approaching the runway.
PiS has long challenged an official report into the crash issued by the previous Polish government which cited a catalogue of errors on the Polish side, while also pointing to errors made by Russian staff at the control tower of Smolensk Military Airport.
A Russian report placed all the blame on the Poles.
(pk)
Source: IAR