The plane crash that claimed the life of the Polish president was the second tragedy linked to Katyn that united Poland and Russia like the first Soviet-era tragedy could not, dpa reported. The death of President Lech Kaczynski 95 others, including his wife Maria and dozens of high-ranking officials, has shocked Poland. The group had been en route to ceremonies in western Russia to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which Soviet secret police executed some 22,000 Polish officers during World War II. Parallels were quickly drawn between the two Polish tragedies that claimed the lives of the the country's elite, leaving a void in the intellectual and political circles. But Polish analysts also noted that in the wake of the plane crash, Russian and Polish politicians showed human emotions and unity in gestures that had been lacking at recent official events marking the Katyn massacre. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk paid tribute to the victims of the massacre on April 7, at the first of several commemorative ceremonies in Katyn. Polish commentators saw Putin's participation as a symbolic gesture, as it was the first time a high-ranking Russian official attended such a ceremony. But they said there was no breakthrough because Putin avoided an apology and instead blamed totalitarianism for both the Katyn massacre and Russian deaths in the Great Purges of the 1930s. Commentators, however, were more touched when Putin and Tusk paid tribute at the scene of another tragedy: when the two leaders lay flowers Saturday night at the site of the plane crash in Smolensk, near Katyn. Tusk knelt and briefly hid his face in his hands, then stood up as Putin padded him on the shoulder. The two hugged, then gave a mutual press conference on the investigation into the crash. It was a human gesture, and a display of emotion that Poles had longed to see from their eastern neighbours, said commentators on Polish broadcaster TVN 24. -- SPA
