Polish President Lech Kaczynski Killed in Plane Crash in Russia; Poland in Mourning

Mr. Kaczynski had been on his way to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which Soviet secret police slaughtered some 20,000 military officers that had been captured when the USSR invaded eastern Poland at the start of World War II. The Soviet Union denied and covered up the atrocity for half a century and, in a bitter irony, this ceremony had been intended as a moment of reconciliation, in which Russians and Poles could mourn the dead together.

People gather in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw to pay their respects to the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, both among the 97 people killed when the presidential plane crashed Saturday morning in Russia.