Kate and William meet ex-Polish president Lech Walesa on Poland tour
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met former Solidarity co-founder and ex-Polish president Lech Walesa in Gdansk today.
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet ex-Polish president
William and Kate met him when they toured a museum created to commemorate the struggle of Solidarity, the first independent trade union in a Soviet bloc country.
The European Solidarity Centre, a museum and library beside the Gdansk Shipyard, is filled with iconic images from the struggle during the 1980s.
William and Kate followed the example of thousand of visitors to the museum by writing brief messages of support on tiny pieces of paper that joined others to make a giant red and white Solidarity mural.
Kate and William met former Solidarity co-founder and ex-Polish president Lech Walesa today
Outside the building Kate laid a single white rose and William a red rose at the base of the towering Monument to the fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970, which commemorates 42 people killed by the communist authorities during food riots in cities along the Baltic coast.
Mr Walesa, 73, and his colleagues helped bring about the fall of communism in Poland by leading workers at the shipyard out on strikes against the authorities, eventually turning Solidarity into a non-violent anti-communist movement with 10 million members that ultimately forced free elections in Poland.
Mr Walesa, 73, and his colleagues helped bring about the fall of communism in Poland
Kate and William each laid a rose at the base of the towering monument
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge take part in a wreath laying ceremony
Prince William and Kate receive warm welcome in Poland
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as Polish president from 1990 to 1995 but in recent years he has become a controversial figure amid claims he acted as a secret police informant in the 1970s.
He has denied the claims despite a welter of evidence offered.