Polish, Italian presidents mark Battle of Monte Cassino anniversary
President Andrzej Duda and his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella on Saturday took part in events marking the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino, in which Polish forces, under the command of General Wladyslaw Anders, played a key role.
The main observances of the battle's anniversary were held at the Polish War Cemetery at the Monte Cassino hill.
Among those taking part in the commemorations was the daughter of General Anders, Poland's Ambassador to Italy Anna Maria Anders, several dozen war veterans, including former Anders Army soldiers and local officials.
Duda said in his speech at Monte Cassino that Europe must learn lessons from history.
"From this place, fallen soldiers call on Europe for responsibility. They call out: never again war, don't let it happen, help the Ukrainians stop the Russians, don't let Russian imperialism spread to other European countries," he said.
Duda said that many people forgot that immediately after Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Poland was invaded by Soviet Russia. "As an ally of Germany, it tore Poland into two parts and it was from this Soviet occupation that the soldiers who died here came."
"They came from Soviet labour camps, from exile, from distant Siberia, from Kazakhstan, where they spent years doing slave, backbreaking work, from which they managed to escape thanks to an agreement with the Western Allies, because a soldier was needed at the front, and many of them had previously been soldiers of the Polish army," he continued.
Most of the soldiers, Duda added, could not return home.
"Even though they shed their blood on the World War II fronts, even though they won at Monte Casino, their heroism was ignored by the allies. They did not take part in the victory parade, they were pushed back, and Poland was handed over to the Soviets and for 40 years it was behind the Iron Curtain," he said.
"Today we must draw conclusions from this and we are doing so," Duda said, mentioning, the modernisation of the Polish army.
"I believe that today's Europe has learned that lesson and will no longer allow Russian imperialism to take over countries and enslave people, as it happened in the past," he concluded.
The Battle of Monte Cassino, also known as the Battle for Rome, lasted from January 1 7till May 19, 1944 and comprised four battles between allied forces and the German army in the region around the monastery on the summit of Monte Cassino. The battle is considered one of the fiercest of World War II.
On May 18, 1944, after ferocious fighting, Polish troops of the II Corps under the leadership of General Anders, took the summit of Monte Cassino and captured the monastery. In the fighting 923 Polish soldiers lost their lives, 2,931 were wounded and 345 were listed as missing in action. A few days after the victory at Monte Cassino, allied troops broke through the Gustav Line along its entire length. On 14 June 1944, American troops entered Rome.
In 1945, a Polish war cemetery was opened at Monte Cassino, where 1,072 Polish soldiers were laid to rest. In 1970, General Wladyslaw Anders was buried alongside his soldiers.
The Anders Army was formed in 1941 in the Soviet Union. In March 1942 it made its way through Iran to Palestine under a British-Soviet-Polish understanding. In Palestine the force passed under British command and provided the bulk of the Polish II Corps (member of the Polish Armed Forces in the West), which fought in the Italian Campaign. (PAP)
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