Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Countrymen living in Poland, the USA, and Canada
On behalf of the Smoleńsk-Katyń Committee, we present to you today a Commemorative Book, which summarizes the work related to the unveiling of the monument.
We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all the institutions, organizations, and each of you individually, who contributed to the realization of Mr. Janusz Kudłeko’s idea to build the monument.
In particular, we want to thank the hosts of today’s ceremony, the Pauline Fathers of the American Częstochowa, the Spiritual Capital of the Polish diaspora. We extend our thanks to Provincial Fr. Krzysztof Wieliczko, Prior Fr. Bogdan Olzacki, and former Provincials Fr. Tadeusz Lizińczyk and Fr. Marcin Ćwierz, who were the first to support the idea and gave their consent for the monument to stand in the Alley of the Distinguished on the cemetery.
The project of building the monument is an example of how, with collective effort and unity around a noble cause, according to the motto of the Smoleńsk-Katyń Committee: “WE BUILD A COMMON PATRIOTIC FRONT – POLONIA SEMPER FIDELIS,” we can accomplish great things and pay tribute to all those who fought for Poland’s independence, carrying the banner of the motto: GOD – HONOR – COUNTRY. Let us hope that the generation of Solidarity was the last in this relay race of fighting for independence, who, by giving their lives, remembered that “(…) independence is never given once and for all.”
On behalf of the organizing committee
Tadeusz Antoniak