Madam, - Last week I had the opportunity to visit Poland where I participated in a fascinating series of conversations and seminars on the challenges and opportunities which lie beyond the celebrations on May 1st.
However, the real message of my first visit to Poland came in the three hours which were devoted to a city tour of Warsaw. The extraordinary rebirth of a city devastated in the second Word War was evident in the meticulous recreation of the Royal Palace which today is the setting of a remarkable exhibition of modern Polish sculpture.
The terrible history of the 20th century was summed up in the memorials to the heroic Warsaw Uprising and to the destruction of the Jewish Ghetto, whose inhabitants were either buried under its rubble or transported to Auschwitz and Treblinka. The memorial to the Katyn Massacre in the Military Cathedral and the sinister death cells restored within the ruins of the Pawiak Prison recalled the outrages of both Soviet Communism and Nazism.
At the very spot where, on December 7th 1970, Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany, fell to his knees in silent homage to the men, women and children of the Ghetto, the true meaning of May 1st, 2004 became evident.
Poland had been invaded, dominated, raped by totalitarian forces of Left and Right, seeking to unify Europe by force and terror. It had achieved its independence and reaffirmed its remarkable cultural identity through its struggles in the 1980s. Now, by the free choice of its people in last year's referendum, Poland was about to join 24 other European democracies in pursuit of the idea of a united Europe described by Robert Schumann "as an essential objective to serve the purpose of peace" and embodied in today's expanding European Union.
As the debates on the EU Constitution regain momentum, it is most important that we seek to go beyond the details of institutional arrangements and definitions to reflect on what really matters in historical and human terms. - Yours etc.,
TONY BROWN,
Bettyglen,
Dublin 5.