Poland Marks 85th Anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Invasion at Start of World War II

People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)
People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)
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Poland Marks 85th Anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Invasion at Start of World War II

People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)
People lay a wreath at the monument to the 1939 heroic defense of the Westerplatte peninsula outpost during solemn observances of the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, at Westerplatte, on the Baltic Sea, Poland, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024. (AP)

Poland's leaders stressed the need for a strong defense in the face of war in neighboring Ukraine and redress as they led solemn ceremonies early Sunday to mark the 85th anniversary of German Nazi forces invading and bombing Polish territory at the start of World War II.

Sirens wailed and a memorial bell tolled as President Andrzej Duda and deputy ambassador of Germany, Robert Rohde, attended an observance in the town of Wielun, the first civilian target of German bombing in the small hours of Sept. 1, 1939. Some 1,200 people were killed in the attack which witnesses say began at 4:40 a.m.

"We can say that we have forgiven even though we remember, even though the pain is persisting and even though there are still tens of thousands of those who have been directly hurt by the Germans," Duda said. He also called on Berlin to make amends.

Meanwhile, at a monument on the Baltic Sea's Westerplatte peninsula, where a military outpost was shelled by a German warship just minutes after Wielun was attacked, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz laid wreaths and attended a memorial roll call for fallen soldiers. At the time, the outpost's outnumbered troops fought for seven days before surrendering to the Germans, becoming a symbol of heroism and patriotism.

Tusk said war was present again in the region as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, grinds on.

He said, in a clear reference to Germany, it wasn't enough to speak about "reconciliation" or to "bend your head in a sense of guilt," adding that the best sign of lessons learned from the past is "the readiness to organize the entire western world, Europe and NATO for the defense against aggression that we are witnessing today in the battlefields of Ukraine."

"Today we will not say ‘Neven Again.’ Today we must say ‘Never Again Alone’," the prime minister said.

Tusk also said Poland was building "the most modern army in Europe, one of the strongest in Europe" to actively contribute to the unity and strength of the NATO defense alliance and the European continent and "to defend our civilization" and "never again expose our homeland to any risks."

In more than five years of World War II and brutal German occupation, Poland lost 6 million citizens or a sixth of its population, of which 3 million were Jewish. The country also suffered huge losses to its infrastructure, industry and agriculture.

Poland's previous right-wing government demanded $1.3 trillion in damages from Germany. Tusk's current Cabinet has toned the demand down to some form of compensation that could serve to strengthen the ties between the two neighbors. Germany insists the matter is closed as it had paid damages to the Moscow-led East Bloc after the war. Warsaw says it did not get any share of it.

Addressing attendees at the Wielun observance, the Polish president said: "Forgiveness and the admission of guilt is one thing, but compensation for the damage caused is another thing. And this issue has not been settled yet."



SpaceX-Polaris Crew Exits Capsule for First Private Spacewalk

Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, attend a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US August 19, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, attend a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US August 19, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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SpaceX-Polaris Crew Exits Capsule for First Private Spacewalk

Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, attend a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US August 19, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, commander Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis, crew members of Polaris Dawn, a private human spaceflight mission, attend a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US August 19, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

A crew of four aboard a SpaceX capsule embarked on the world's first private spacewalk on Thursday, as an astronaut eased out of the Crew Dragon spacecraft on a tether into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman, 41, exited first about 6:52 a.m. ET (1052 GMT). After he returned a few minutes later, SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, 30, was scheduled to take her turn in space, all their maneuvers streaming live on the company's website, Reuters reported.

"Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said after emerging from the spacecraft, the planet glittering in half shadow below him.

Before the spacewalk began, the capsule was completely depressurized, with the whole crew relying on their slim, SpaceX-developed spacesuits for oxygen, provided via an umbilical connection to Crew Dragon.

The spacewalk was scheduled to last only about 30 minutes, but the procedures to prepare for it and to finish it safely last about two hours. It was meant to test the new spacesuit designs and procedures for the capsule, among other things.

Isaacman, Gillis, Scott Poteet, 50, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon, 38, had been orbiting Earth aboard Crew Dragon since Tuesday's pre-dawn launch from Florida of the Polaris Dawn mission. Menon and Poteet remained inside the spacecraft during the spacewalk.

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It is the Elon Musk-led company's latest and riskiest bid to push the boundaries of commercial spaceflight.

Isaacman, a pilot and the billionaire founder of electronic payments company Shift4 (FOUR.N), opens new tab, is bankrolling the Polaris mission, as he did his Inspiration4 flight with SpaceX in 2021.

He has declined to say how much he is paying, but the missions are likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, based on Crew Dragon's price of roughly $55 million a seat for other flights.

-FARTHEST SINCE APOLLO

Throughout Wednesday, the craft circled Earth at least six times in an oval orbit as shallow as 190 km (118 miles) and stretching out as far as 1,400 km (870 miles), the farthest in space that humans have traveled since the last US Apollo mission in 1972.

The gumdrop-shaped spacecraft then began to lower its orbit into a peak 700-km (435-mile) position and adjust cabin pressure to ready for the spacewalk, formally called Extravehicular Activity (EVA), the Polaris program said on social media on Wednesday.

"The crew also spent a few hours demonstrating the suit’s pressurized mobility, verifying positions and accessibility in microgravity along with preparing the cabin for the EVA," it said.

Only government astronauts with several years of training have done spacewalks in the past.

There have been roughly 270 on the International Space Station (ISS) since it was set up in 2000, and 16 by Chinese astronauts on Beijing's Tiangong space station.

The Polaris crew has spent 2-1/2 years training with SpaceX mission simulations and "experiential learning" in challenging, uncomfortable environments, said Poteet.

A record 19 astronauts are now in orbit, after Russia's Soyuz MS-26 mission ferried two cosmonauts and a US astronaut to the International Space Station on Wednesday, taking its headcount to 12.

Three Chinese astronauts are aboard the Tiangong space station.

The first US spacewalk in 1965, aboard a Gemini capsule, used a similar procedure to the one planned for Polaris Dawn: the capsule was depressurized, the hatch opened, and a spacesuited astronaut ventured outside on a tether.

Since 2001, Crew Dragon, the only US vehicle capable of reliably putting humans in orbit and returning them to Earth, has flown more than a dozen astronaut missions, mainly for NASA.

The agency seeded development of the capsule under a program meant to establish commercial, privately-built US vehicles capable of ferrying astronauts with the ISS.

Also developed under that program was Boeing's Starliner capsule, but it is farther behind.

Starliner launched its first astronauts to the ISS in June in a troubled test mission that ended this month with the capsule returning empty, leaving its crew on the space station for a Crew Dragon capsule to fetch next year.