Tuesday is the 70th anniversary of the start of World War Two. To mark the occasion, Polish leaders attended a ceremony on the Baltic peninsula, where the conflict began.
At the place where the first shots were fired 70 years ago, Polish political leaders, church and military authorities gathered at the Westerplatte memorial. They were there to remember those who gave their lives to defeat Nazi Germany.
Donald Tusk, Polish Prime Minister, said, "We meet here to remember who started this war, who was the perpetrator in this war, who was the executioner in this war and who was the victim of this war and this aggression."
In 1939, Westerplatte was a military outpost guarding the entrance to Polish naval ports. Two-hundred-and 30 soldiers fought for seven days under heavy bombardment by Nazi Germany's navy and air force.
Seventy years later, people placed wreathes at the foot of the monument to the defenders of Westerplatte. The country's Prime Minister warned people to never forget the war's lessons.
Donald Tusk, Polish Prime Minister, said, "We know that without this memory, the honest memory of the truth about the sources of World War two Poland, Europe and the World will not be really safe."
The battle at Westerplatte was a beginning of more than five years of war. More than 50 million people were slaughtered as the Nazi war machine rolled over Europe. Poland alone lost some six million people, half of them Jews. Many of its cities, including the capital, Warsaw, were left in ruins.
(CCTV September 2, 2009)
