The ceremonies held on 31 August in Lubin were attended, among others, by the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland Beata Szydło, Minister of National Defence Antoni Macierewicz, as well as local government authorities, representatives of NSZZ “Solidarity” and residents of Lubin. The “Black Division” was represented by the commander of the 11th Lubusz Armoured Cavalry Division, Brigadier General Stanisław Czosnek, while the garrison was represented by the commander of the 23rd Silesian Artillery Regiment, Colonel Paweł Świtalski.
The anniversary ceremonies began with a Mass at the Church of Our Lady of Częstochowa, presided over by the Bishop of Legnica, Zbigniew Kiernikowski. The ceremony’s participants then marched through the city streets to the Monument to the Memory of the Victims of Lubin, laying bouquets of flowers along the way at memorial sites commemorating the deaths of Andrzej Trajkowski, Mieczysław Poźniak and Michał Adamowicz, who on 31 August 1982, during a peaceful demonstration, were killed by bullets fired by ZOMO officers.
The ceremonial roll call began with the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, receiving the report. (The report was delivered by the ceremony commander, Major Marek Lewandowski). After the “alarm for the city of Lubin,” the national flag was raised and the national anthem was sung to the accompaniment of a mining orchestra.
“Here, in Lubin, workers died for that August of 1980. They died for the freedom that was partly won then, a freedom whose taste we managed to experience for a little more than a year. They died from bullets—they died as people die in war. They died like those who fell unarmed in the Warsaw Uprising, because although they had no weapons, they wanted a free Poland,” Andrzej Duda said.
To honour the memory of and pay tribute to the victims of August 1982, Major Jerzy Juchaniuk of the 23rd Artillery Regiment read the Roll Call of Remembrance, after which the honour company fired a ceremonial salute.
The ceremony concluded with the laying of wreaths and bouquets of flowers at the Monument to the Memory of the Victims of Lubin by the murdered men’s families, the authorities of the Republic of Poland, local government authorities, NSZZ “Solidarity” and delegations of invited guests. Minister Antoni Macierewicz was accompanied while laying his wreath by the commander of the 11th Lubusz Armoured Cavalry Division, Brigadier General Stanisław Czosnek, and the commander of the 23rd Artillery Regiment, Colonel Paweł Świtalski.