On Friday, 4 November, funeral ceremonies of the Heroic Defenders of Westerplatte will be held at the Polish Army Soldiers’ Cemetery in Westerplatte, attended by the President of Poland, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Andrzej Duda.

The coffins with the remains of the ten defenders of Westerplatte were taken to St Brigid’s Basilica in Gdansk on Thursday 3 November. They were displayed in the side aisle of the basilica, and the guard of honour was kept by soldiers of the Polish Army.

On Friday, the Field Bishop of the Polish Army will hold a memorial service at the basilica. After the service, the coffins of the Westerplatte defenders will be carried out of the church and placed on five military vehicles, which will pass from the centre of Gdansk to Westerplatte in a funeral procession.

At the new Polish Soldiers’ Cemetery, next to the commander, Major Henryk Sucharski, the remains of nine Westerplaters, found during archaeological work carried out by archaeologists from the Second World War Museum in Gdańsk on the Westerplatte peninsula, will be laid to rest.

The remains of seven of them were found in 2019 and later identified. They are platoon sergeant Adolf Petzelt, corporal Jan Gębura, corporal Bronisław Perucki, senior gunner Władysław Okrasa (Okraszewski), senior legionnaires Ignacy Zatorski and Zygmunt Zięba and legionnaire Józef Kita. The identities of two of the defenders could not be confirmed conclusively.

The remains of Major Henryk Sucharski, commandant of the Military Transit Depot, who died in 1946 and was exhumed in 2021, will also be ceremonially buried.

“We are marking an important caesura in the history of Westerplatte and the commemoration of heroes. We are fully aware of this. We are trying to honour those people who fulfilled their duty to the country”, said Dr Grzegorz Berendt, director of the Second World War Museum in Gdańsk.

Adrian Andrzejewski