2024-09-01 11:52 update: 2024-09-01, 11:54
Photo PAP/Marcin Gadomski
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said that a lesson from World War II for Poland is to put full dedication to its defence capabilities in order to be able to face any aggression.
He was speaking at a ceremony commemorating the start of World War II held at the Westerplatte peninsula, northern Poland, the shelling of which by German battleship Schleswig-Holstein marked the outbreak of the most destructive conflict in world history 85 years ago.
"It is not enough to talk about reconciliation, it is not enough to bow your head in guilt on the part of those who attacked Poland and unleashed World War II," Tusk told participants of the anniversary ceremonies in Westerplatte, a peninsula on the Baltic coast, part of the city of Gdansk.
"Today, the most important testimony to understanding this lesson is the full dedication to defence, the readiness to organise the entire world of Western Europe, NATO, to defend against the aggression that we are witnessing today on the battlefields of Ukraine," he argued.
"The lesson of Westerplatte, the lesson of World War II is not an abstraction from textbooks, Tusk continued. "This war is coming from the East again."
"We speak about it in direct language," he further said, "because unfortunately our hopes, which we have been expressing out loud here for decades, precisely on Westerplatte, every year on September 1 'No more war', have not come true."
Tusk added that Poland can never again face "aggression from this or that neighbour" alone.
"Today we will not say: 'no more war'. Today we must say: "no more loneliness".
Therefore, he said, "we will permanently build the North Atlantic Alliance and unite Europe also for the defence of Poland, our civilisation".
"We must also say loudly today 'Never again weakness', he continued adding that Poland is building one of the most modern and strongest army in Europe "so that we will never again put the existence of our homeland at risk."
The Westerplatte Peninsula in Gdansk was the site of the first clash between German and Polish forces. A small Polish garrison stationed on Westerplatte fought off fierce German attacks from land, sea and the air until September 7. (PAP)
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