Washington DC, August 28, 2009 -- The Polish American Congress, one of thecountry’s largest umbrella groups of Polish American organizations, joinswith millions of other Americans to mourn the passing of Sen. Edward M.Kennedy, a great statesman and a tireless advocate for human rights in theUnited States, Poland and around the world.
“The memories held by many Polish Americans of Senator Kennedy are cherishedones that span his life and our own,” said PAC President Frank Spula in astatement released Friday in Washington.
When the new Pope, John Paul II, made his first papal journey to Boston in1979, it was Senator Kennedy who led a joyous throng to meet him at theairport, Spula recalled.
“Later, when Senator Kennedy was denied a visa by Poland’s communist regimebefore Christmas 1986, he persisted in his quest and just five months laterwas able to present awards to Zbigniew Bujak and Adam Michnik, organizers ofthe Solidarity movement, for their achievements in the spirit of his latebrother Robert,” Spula noted. “When he gave them the Robert F. Kennedy HumanRights Award, Edward Kennedy praised the pair for their willingness to‘speak truth to power.’
“But on that trip Kennedy’s own example of speaking truth to power camewhen, under surveillance by the communist regime, he took three of hischildren, three of his sisters, Robert Kennedy’s widow Ethel, as well asseveral of their nieces and nephews to the grave of martyred Rev. JerzyPopieluszko, who was killed two and a half years earlier under marshal law,”Spula recalled. “There he embraced Popieluszko’s elderly parents, goodpeople of the land with gnarled hands and stooped postures.”
There, as the New York Times reported, Senator Kennedy remarked that, “LikeFather Jerzy’s mother and father, my mother and father lost sons tosenseless violence. Like Father Jerzy’s brothers and sisters, I and mysisters lost brothers to senseless violence. And I know that my brothers andsisters, like Father Jerzy, would want all of us to carry on their goodwork.”
“Senator Kennedy did just that,” Spula continued. “He fought hard for therights of working men and women in the United States and across the globe;his name became synonymous with the fight for freedom and human rights.”
“You saw that in how he fought for immigration reform and how his voicethundered a resounding ‘yes’ to Poland’s accession to NATO. He was indeedthe ‘Lion of the Senate’ in Washington, but he was also fierce in hispursuit of the betterment of the lives of millions of Poles and PolishAmericans.” (MEA)
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