Bush and Polish-Americans Hail Reburial of Paderewski

President Bush on Friday called the late Ignace Jan Paderewski “one of the great men of our time” as he gathered a group of Polish-Americans to celebrate the return of the musician-statesman’s remains to his homeland.

Paderewski’s body has lain in Arlington Cemetery since his 1941 death in New York. It was the dying wish of the great concert pianist that his body be returned to Poland when it recovered its independence.

“That day has come,” Bush said in a Rose Garden address to ethnic Americans and Polish officials. “Poland has thrown off the yoke of Soviet communism.”

The President said it will be “one of the greatest honors of my presidency” to take part in final rights services for Paderewski in Poland next week. Bush will stop in Warsaw en route to Munich for the economic summit of industrialized nations.

After Paderewski’s death at the age of 80, President Franklin D. Roosevelt directed his remains be held in Arlington until Poland was free of its oppressors. Paderewski died only weeks after Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Paderewski’s remains will lie in state at the Royal Castle in Warsaw and will be taken to Poznan before burial in Warsaw’s St. John Cathedral on July 5.