Danzig is stunned after Adamowicz's murder

Commemoration in Gdansk of the mayor killed Pawel Adamowicz. (Image: Wojciech Strozyk / AP)

The "N" in the inscription from the Gdańsk "Neptune Park" is located in the field of mourning. A bouquet of roses is in the "E", and four white tombstones burn on a black bar stool. "Here he lived, it is a tragedy," says the guard at the entrance gate to the enclosed grounds right on the Bay of Gdansk (Gdansk). We are talking about Pawel Adamowicz, the murdered mayor. It was here inside and out, the more he could not say, the security guard is buttoned up. In addition, residents of nearly 40 condos do not want to comment on the day after his death. Everyone is leading their lives here, calling a passer-by.

Sea of ​​lights in the center of the city

In the center of Gdansk, Monday evening, a sea of ​​lights stands on the already semi-structured stage, a few hundred meters from the town hall. On this he stabbed an alleged mentally ill and due to several kidnappings in the bank the man affected Adamowicz the day before. Citizens remain silent and always bring new candles. Some cross paths and many move towards the Long Market, in a protest against the hate. Thousands are standing there in stunned silence. At the town hall, the President of the Council of the European Union Donald Tusk, who flew in a hurry, utters a speech barely audible, as well as Adamowicz a local. Most people gathered with their white candles are not interested in this at all.

Adamowicz, from the liberal character, who has governed Gdansk since 1998, has shaped the city like no Polish politician since the Second World War. The former clandestine anticommunist activist was considered a good manager, as a city father with very personal interests, but the mayor's office was not considered as a career move in state politics. Adamowicz was closely linked to his hometown, where his parents were expelled in 1946 by the Soviets from the former Polish eastern territories around the present Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

The inhabitants of Gdansk have appreciated Adamowicz's inclusive and pragmatic urban policies. But he took until 2015 as a member of the Civic Platform party (PO), then as an independent, position also in internal political conflicts; The followers of Liberal Tusk and the strongman of the conservative national government party Law and Justice (PiS), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have irreconcilably opposed Poland's accession to the EU 15 years ago. In the dispute over the prestigious World War II Museum, a project by the Tusk government (2007-15), Adamowicz took a clear stance against the PiS, which accuses the lack of patriotism. Commemorative days such as the start of the war on September 1, 1939 or the strike of the Solidarnosc union of the 1980s regularly used Adamowicz to advise against Kaczynski's supporters. For this reason, he was considered a public enemy by the PiS – as is the well-known Gdansk Lech Walesa abroad.

Political polarization

In Poland, in the meantime, the question of how crime can be the result of political struggle and of the associated hate speech is discussed. The liberal civic platform (PO) had thrown him into prison and tortured there, so Adamowicz had to die, the killer had called after his horrible act in a microphone. Government television dominated by the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), however, sees the main culprit in the guards. After all, several people were arrested in the meantime, who had threatened other mayors of opposition to Poznan and Wroclaw. So far, they had been ignored.

How much is divided Poland today showed on Tuesday night the reaction to the commemoration of the citizens in Gdansk. Readers of the online portal of the left liberal newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza" commented on this, claiming that the PiS is preparing other killers against mayors in prisons. The aim of the ruling party was to temporarily assume the cities lost in the November local elections against the liberal opposition. On the pro-government portals, Adamowicz's friends were abused as helpers of a conspiracy against Poland and Hungary, quoted by Georges Soros.