Toronto Poles mourn crash victims

Members of Toronto's Polish community began a week of mourning Sunday with a church service to remember Polish President Lech Kaczynski and the 95 other people killed in a plane crash.

Kaczynski's plane crashed in heavy fog near Smolensk, Russia, on Saturday

"It is going to take time for this to sink in as to what exactly this means for us as a people of faith - and also for us as Poles," Rev. Pawel Ratajczak of St. Casimir's Roman Catholic Church told CBC News.

"This is very sad time. Very sad," Gina Galaska said as she arrived for the mass at the Roncesvalles Avenue church in the city's west end.

"It's a terrible loss," said Ignatz Kadzella, who added that Kaczynski "was a good Pole."

Special mass

Parishioners some of whom arrived carrying flowers had been planning a special mass to mark the 60th anniversary of the church. Instead, with numerous dignitaries in attendance, the congregation also found itself marking a tragedy affecting both their homeland and their lives in Canada.

"This will be a week of national mourning," Ratajczak said.

Janusz Charczuk, a retired architect, said he knew one of the crash victims "my very good friend who I knew since 1968."

Charczuk said his friend "was all excited" when the two men talked two days earlier.

"I knew he was going to be on this plane because he told me," Charczuk said.

'This will be a week of national mourning.' Rev. Pawel Ratajczak of St. Casimir's Roman Catholic Church

"I can't describe it. I was devastated," he said about hearing of the crash.

After mass was over, the street filled as people made their way to the nearby Katynmemorial at King Street and Roncesvalles Avenue, overlooking Lake Ontario.The monumentcommemorates the more than 20,000 Polish officers, police and others murdered by the Soviet secret police and buried in mass graves in the Katyn forest near Smolensk in 1940.

"A large crowd marched to the site of the memorial," said the CBC's Nil Koksal.

"Moment by moment it's been a steady stream of people kneeling down to pray and perhaps light a candle," she said.