2024-05-02 11:23 update: 2024-05-05, 14:37
Photo PAP/Leszek Szymański
Poland celebrated May 2 as National Flag Day and the Day of the Polish Diaspora and Poles Abroad with a series of events planned across the country to mark both occasions.
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, thanked on Thursday the Poles abroad for taking care of their Polish heritage, as the country celebrated the Day of the Polish Diaspora.
Duda presented state decorations, acts of citizenship and white and red flags to representatives of Polish diaspora organisations.
He also thanked all those who "preserved the memory of Poland, often for many generations."
Duda said that the symbolic act of granting Polish citizenship was a way to also thank those, who "kept their Polish heritage in their hearts, through their parenting, language and the memory of their relatives and roots."
"We welcome you with open arms," he added, "and we are very happy to have you with us in the physical sense and that you have always been close to us in your hearts."
On Thursday morning, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski offered his best wishes to the Polish community living abroad on social media.
"During these days I am thinking of the compatriots, whom Poland has abandoned but also about those dispersed all over the world." he said in a video recording posted on the X platform.
"I was once one of you," he added.
"Thank you for upholding the Polish spirit, for maintaining your ties to Poland, for teaching your children to speak the Polish language. During those days the White and Red (flag - PAP) brings us together in a special way."
According to Polish Foreign Ministry's data, there are roughly 20 million people of Polish ancestry living outside Poland, making the Polish diaspora one of the largest in the world.
These are people who left the country or were born outside Poland but claim Polish heritage, descendants of 19th century emigrants and refugees fleeing from wars, subsequent generations of former Polish citizens who remained in the Kresy or Eastern Borderlands (Poland's pre-WWII eastern territories), or within the Soviet Union, former anti-communist oppositionists with their families and economic emigrants who left Poland after 1989. (PAP)
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