The annual march organized in Warsaw by nationalist groups to celebrate Polish Independence Day passed peacefully through the city.
Among the participants, whose number is estimated at around 150,000, was recently elected right-wing President Karol Nawrocki, whose conservative predecessor, Andrzej Duda, had avoided attending the event.
However, members of Poland’s more liberal government stayed away from the march. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, attending a separate Independence Day celebration in his hometown of Gdańsk, declared that “no one has a monopoly on patriotism” and called “diversity a source of our strength”.
Joan and I stayed at home and celebrated the day by eating four of the famous Rogala pastries.
It seemed odd that Poland is celebrating its independence while in the United States there is a struggle to keep its independence from becoming a dictatorship, and Ukraine is fighting a war to save its country.
