N.S. Polish community mourns tragedy

Many of the 4,000 Nova Scotians of Polish descent are expected to attend a special service at Saint Anthony's Church in Dartmouth on Sunday to mourn the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

The morning servicebegins at 11 a.m. AT in honour ofKaczynski and the more than 90 other Polish government officials who died in a plane crash on Saturday morning.

Alina Klimek's friends and family gathered at her home in Halifax to talk about the plane crash on Saturday, just as many members of Canada's Polish community were grieving the tragedy.

During the Second World War, Klimek, the head of the Polish Association of Halifax, said two of her great uncles were killed by Soviet secret police during the 1940 Katyn Forest massacre in Russia.

The plane crash occurred a day before the 70th anniversary of the massacre, when the Sovietsslaughtered 22,000 Polish officers.

Kaczynski was travelling with other officials to commemorate that event when his plane crashed in Russia during a risky landing in foggy weather.

Klimek said she wonders if the importance of beingat the ceremonyaffected his judgment.

"Sometimes even I think the pilot was under pressure of more higher ranking people on the plane, we don't know," she said.

What they do know is that this crash is a tragedy like no other in Polish history.

Raffel Kasina, who moved to Canada from Poland in 1981, said relations between Russia and Poland were improving after decades of mistrust.

Kasina said he is hoping that will continue in the wake of thisdisaster.

"You have to think of something positive in that moment, otherwise nothing good can otherwise come out of it," Kasina said.

Other services are being planned across Canada to mark the tragedy. In Toronto, where about 300,000 of Canada's nearly one million Polish Canadians reside, people in the Roncesvalles neighbourhood laid flowers at the Katyn Memorial at King Street and Roncesvalles Avenue on Saturday.

A service at the Katyn memorial is planned for Sunday at 11 a.m.