Be Like Poland: What Britain Could Learn from Its Neighbour to the East

Today is the eleventh of November. At eleven o'clock this morning Britain fell silent for two minutes, as it does every year, to remember the men who died in the Great War and every war since. Eight hundred miles to the east, the same date means something else entirely. For Poland, 11 November is Independence Day, the day in 1918 when a nation that had been wiped off the map for 123 years came back to life.

Last year I spent that day in Warsaw. I stood in the crowds at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at dawn, wandered an Old Town where every museum door had been thrown open, and then walked for hours with the Independence March, through drizzle, fog and red flares, all the way to the National Stadium. I came home with one thought I could not shake: Britain could learn a great deal from Poland. This is the film I made, and below it is the longer argument.

One date, two very different meanings

In Britain, 11 November is a day of mourning. We wear the poppy, we read the names and we say "we will remember them". It is right that we do, and I would never want that to change. But it is a day that looks backwards, almost entirely, at loss.

In Poland the same date carries the loss and the triumph together. On 11 November 1918, as the guns stopped on the Western Front, Józef Piłsudski took command of Polish forces in Warsaw, and a country that had been carved up between Russia, Prussia and Austria in the late eighteenth century became a sovereign state again. The Poles mourn their dead on this day, but they also celebrate the simple, extraordinary fact that they exist. That double meaning is the key to everything I saw.

This year the date arrives in the shadow of something terrible. Last Saturday a gunman killed six people in Kraków's Main Market Square, one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. I will come back to that later, because it deserves care rather than a passing mention.

Dawn at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

A military ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Piłsudski Square, Warsaw.

At half past ten on Independence Day morning I was walking towards Piłsudski Square. The fire engines and ambulances were already parked up, crews huddled by the open doors. The police stood in lines with their helmets under their arms and their boots polished. Behind them were soldiers, faces set as if they were guarding a frontier rather than a city square. The square itself was locked down; only the black cars with diplomatic pennants were waved through. I spotted the British Embassy's delegation, the Swedish ambassador and plenty of others. Ordinary people like me were funnelled onto the trampled grass at the edges, holding our phones up like periscopes.

And yet the crowd was enormous. Small children on shoulders, teenagers, middle-aged couples, pensioners wrapped against the cold: all of them had come simply to pay their respects. The tomb sits beneath the surviving arcade of the Saxon Palace, which the Germans blew up in 1944. A single unknown soldier lies there, standing in for every Pole who held the line in 1920, flew with the RAF in 1940 or fought street by street in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

I watched hundreds of servicemen and women march past in step, rifles on their shoulders: airborne troops, mountain troops, territorials who would be back at their civilian jobs on Monday morning. I am six foot tall and I felt short. Nobody cheered; everybody watched. At noon came the wreaths, the speeches and the salute of guns. I could not see much from behind the steel barriers, but you could feel it.

I asked a group of nuns from the Holy Family Sisters what the day meant to them. Their answer was simple: Poland had gone so many years without freedom, under Russians, under Germans and then under the communists, that this was a day for gratitude. They had come from all over the country by car and by tram to show their children how important it was. That was the tone of the whole morning. Respect first.

Piłsudski and the miracle on the Vistula

The monument to Marshal Józef Piłsudski, who gives the square its name.

The man watching over the square is Józef Piłsudski, and you cannot understand Polish pride without him. A revolutionary who spent years in Siberian exile, a legion commander, and later the strongman of the interwar state, he is the figure most Poles associate with the rebirth of 1918. Two years later, in August 1920, the Red Army was at the gates of Warsaw and much of Europe had written Poland off. Piłsudski's counter-attack on the Vistula turned the war. The Poles still call it the Miracle on the Vistula, and it arguably stopped Lenin's revolution from marching further west.

He is remembered for a line I find myself repeating: to be defeated and not submit is victory; to be victorious and rest on your laurels is defeat. I think every modern politician, in Westminster especially, should have that pinned above their desk. Piłsudski died in 1935. Four years later Poland was invaded from the west and then from the east, and the country learned once again what it meant to be without him.

What Britain owes Poland

This is where the story becomes ours, too. Britain went to war in September 1939 because Germany invaded Poland. Polish pilots then flew in the Battle of Britain, and 303 Squadron became one of the most successful fighter squadrons of that summer. Polish soldiers fought at Monte Cassino, Polish sailors sailed with the Royal Navy, and Polish codebreakers had cracked Enigma before the war and handed their work to the British and French.

Then, at Yalta in 1945, the Allies agreed a post-war settlement that left Poland in Stalin's sphere. We called it victory. To the Poles it tasted of ash, and Polish forces were left out of London's victory parade in 1946. Churchill knew the shame of it. Say what you like about him, and he got plenty wrong, but on Poland he understood that a debt had gone unpaid.

What strikes me is what happened next. A nation that had been betrayed, occupied and fenced in behind the Iron Curtain never stopped refusing. A Polish pope came home in 1979 and drew crowds in their millions. An electrician climbed a shipyard fence in Gdańsk in 1980 and the Solidarity movement was born. A decade later the whole communist edifice rusted from within. You can read more about that city in my Gdańsk guide. So on a day when Britain remembers its war dead, it is worth remembering our oldest unpaid debt in Europe, too.

A capital where I could hold my camera out at night

The night before Independence Day I filmed on the streets of Warsaw late into the evening. Here is the difference I keep coming back to: I could hold my camera out without a second thought. I did not expect a masked rider on an e-bike to snatch it, nobody was going to pull a knife on me, nobody tried to mug me. In parts of London I would not dream of doing the same.

Warsaw's Old Town Market Square, rebuilt after the city was razed in 1944.

Warsaw used to have a poor reputation. When I first came, more than twenty years ago, it felt grey, and the Old Town, which the Germans had deliberately destroyed in 1944, was still being pieced back together brick by brick. Today it is one of the prettiest, cleanest and safest capitals I know. In my view that is because the police actually police, the authorities care about the people they serve, and people care about each other. Poland is changing, as every country is, but it is not changing at the speed of Britain, Germany, the Netherlands or Ireland. I walked through it all in Warsaw Old Town Walk: Rebuilt Brick by Brick and Warsaw Old Town: History, Hidden Gems, and Local Flavours.

Open doors, free museums and a nation proud of itself

What I was not expecting was how much of the city opens up on Independence Day. Choirs sang in the streets. Families wore red-and-white armbands and flags; I bought myself a Polish scarf because it was bitterly cold, about four or five degrees, and immediately felt warmer and happier. Food stalls were everywhere.

A student from the University of Warsaw handed me a souvenir newspaper printed for the day and told me the university museum was free to enter, just for today. When I asked what the day meant to her, she said it was a day to remember everyone who fought for independence, to be proud of being Polish, and to welcome visitors. "Everyone is welcome here," she said. I went in, and then into the history museum next door, and then somewhere else. Door after door was open, all with one message: this is your history, your culture, and you should be proud of it.

I felt happiness, and I also felt a real sadness. In England we seem to do the opposite. We are taught to be embarrassed by our history and to apologise for our heritage. Scotland has St Andrew's Day, Wales has St David's Day and England has St George's Day, and we do mark them, but none of them is a celebration of a nation's people in the way 11 November is in Poland. I think that is why so much of the commentary about days like this is so hostile. It sees people coming together around their identity, and it does not like what it sees.

The march: families, flags and flares

In the afternoon the public march gathered at the Roman Dmowski roundabout, under the slogan "One Nation, a Strong Poland". This is the part that makes the headlines. For years the coverage I grew up with showed fire, destruction and fights. The night before, I had met a couple of young progressives who told me they would not be going out at all because it would be "dangerous".

What I actually found was a family day out. There were children everywhere, grandmothers walking arm in arm, couples pushing buggies, flags dripping with rain. Yes, there were plenty of flares and bangers; some young lads with too much testosterone were setting off fireworks, and the bangs echoing off the buildings would make anyone jump. But I never once felt unsafe. There were police marksmen on the rooftops, looking outwards to protect the crowd. As I walked past them I thought: in England, the cameras on the roof would be looking down at us.

Were there people with views more extreme than mine? I am sure there were. Every crowd that size has its characters. But the overwhelming majority I spoke to were ordinary, central, family-minded people who love their country. Most were happy to talk off camera and far more nervous about speaking on camera, which tells you something about the stigma that attaches to simply turning up. I have been on big marches before, including the anti-war march in London before the Iraq invasion. This was bigger than anything I have seen. When I walked back from the stadium against the flow, they were still coming.

The people I met

A man who had spent five years in the Netherlands told me living in Amsterdam had made him feel more Polish, not less. He had come home for good, to raise his family in Poland. His message to visitors was polite and clear: respect our history and our people, and you are welcome.

Zbigniew, who told me the Americans called him Ziggy, carried a Polish flag and an American one. He had lived in the United States, came home around 2000 and has watched Poland grow stronger ever since. He thanked Woodrow Wilson, whose Fourteen Points in 1918 called for an independent Poland, and Ronald Reagan for facing down Moscow. You will find streets and parks named after Wilson across Poland, including Park Wilsona in Poznań, which features in my Poznań guide. Ziggy was blunt about the current government too, which I will come to.

A woman from Poznań, more than 300 kilometres away, told me she could not make it to Warsaw every year, so her city holds its own concert every 11 November instead, and has done for fifteen years. And a young man on his first march told me, in halting English and with enormous feeling, "I love Poland. Very love Poland." That says it better than I can.

Smolensk: the wound that never closed

You cannot walk with this march without hearing one word: Smolensk. On 10 April 2010 the Polish presidential plane crashed near Smolensk in Russia, killing all 96 people on board, including President Lech Kaczyński, his wife and much of the country's military and political leadership. They were flying to commemorate the Katyn massacre of Polish officers by Stalin's secret police in 1940.

The original Russian and Polish investigations put the crash down to an attempted landing in thick fog. A later commission set up under the PiS government argued there had been explosions on board; that conclusion has been strongly disputed. Wikipedia has a fair summary of the investigations. Many of the marchers around me were certain it was an assassination, and I will be honest: I have long had my doubts about the official story. I cannot prove it, and I would not ask you to take my word for it. But I understand why, for so many Poles, it feels like a second Katyn, and why Lech Kaczyński's portrait is carried down the street every November.

Why Donald Tusk is not welcome on the march

Among the banners was a sign telling Donald Tusk to "go back to Germany". To many of the marchers the Prime Minister is a Brussels man first and a Polish one second, and Ziggy summed up the mood when he said the last couple of years had brought, in his words, a bad government. I share a lot of their frustration with politicians who seem to answer to Brussels before their own voters. One sign I saw simply called for Poland to leave the EU. Whether or not you agree, you can see why that feeling has grown.

What is fascinating, and the opposite of Britain, is how close the politicians come to the crowd. The President took part in the official ceremonies and saluted his soldiers outside the Presidential Palace, and the response from the crowd was something you simply would not see at home. Former prime ministers and MEPs walked among the marchers. Can you imagine a British prime minister getting that kind of response from soldiers or the public on our own national day? Neither can I.

The Tusk row over Poland's top court

The Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw, at the centre of the current crisis.

That anger has a fresh focus this autumn. Here are the facts as reported. Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has been at the centre of a long fight since the previous PiS government appointed judges between 2015 and 2023, appointments that the EU's institutions and European courts have long regarded as irregular. President Karol Nawrocki, elected with PiS backing in 2025, has refused to swear in judges elected by the current parliamentary majority, and the court's PiS-era leadership had kept them from working. At the end of October, a judge, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, suspended the tribunal's president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and his deputy. Protesters and riot police faced off outside the court. On 3 November eight judges elected by the current majority declared they had a quorum and resumed the court's work (Politico, AP, Euronews).

The reaction has been fierce. President Nawrocki accused Tusk of an illegal power grab and said full responsibility for the police outside the tribunal lay with "one man", the Prime Minister. PiS and its allies have called it a constitutional coup. Tusk has denounced them as hypocrites, says he is restoring the rule of law after years of PiS interference, and told the nation that "in some matters there can be no compromise". The European Commission has backed the position that appointing the new judges is the Polish parliament's right (Politico, The Irish Times).

Now my view, and it is only my view. Both sides accuse the other of breaking the constitution, and I am not a Polish constitutional lawyer. But when a prime minister's allies suspend the head of a nation's highest court, the police are deployed outside, and the European Commission is the first to applaud, I understand completely why millions of Poles see it as power flowing towards Brussels rather than back to them. Tusk's supporters will say he is cleaning up a captured court. His critics, and I am inclined to side with them on this, see a government using the language of the rule of law to get its own way. Either way, it is Poland's voters who should settle it, at the next election, and not Brussels.

Kraków: a dark weekend before this year's 11 November

Kraków's Main Market Square and the Cloth Hall, photographed in calmer times.

On Saturday 7 November, at about three in the afternoon, a gunman opened fire from a car in and around Kraków's Main Market Square. According to Poland's National Prosecutor's Office, six people were killed, four women and two men, including four Poles, a British national and an Austrian, and 15 were wounded, among them two police officers. Two officers shot and stopped the attacker within minutes. Prosecutors say the suspect, a 24-year-old named as Michał Oksiński, had earlier killed his parents and his 21-year-old sister at the family home in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. He died in hospital on Monday. Prosecutors are investigating the Kraków killings as an offence of a terrorist character (National Prosecutor's Office, BBC, AP).

What drove him is not settled. On Monday the prosecutors' spokesman said investigators could not yet responsibly say he was inspired by any particular ideology, and the prosecutors' statement says the motive has not been established (The Guardian). The Interior Minister had said within hours that he held far-right, "ultra-nationalist" views, and on Tuesday the Justice Minister pointed to visits to websites about the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and other material as indications of right-wing extremism. PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński called the Interior Minister's claim a "blatant lie" (DW).

Ministers were quick to call him far-right. I'm not convinced. Images and posts circulating on X appear to show him posing with a rainbow Pride flag while wearing a gas mask and a military-style beret in screenshots said to come from a now-deleted Facebook profile dated 2019 to 2021 (example), and holding one end of a "Refugees Welcome" banner at a pro-refugee march, beside a sign reading "without states, without borders" (example). Remix News reports that the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, citing a Kraków police source, said material found so far suggested he "may be ultra left-wing", and that the tabloid Super Express, citing unnamed sources, found no links to far-right parties or organisations (Remix News).

To be clear about what this is: none of it has been verified. The authorities have not confirmed that the person in those images is him (as even X's own Grok notes), some people read the gas-mask photo as mockery rather than support, and the prosecutors' spokesman said investigators found no obvious far-right or far-left symbolism in his room, where a Gadsden "Don't tread on me" flag was found (RMF24). The official position remains that his motive has not been established. But if those images are genuine, to me that points to the far left rather than the far right, and I suspect the full picture of his politics will turn out very different from what ministers rushed to claim.

Whatever the truth turns out to be, some things are not in doubt. First, my heart goes out to the families of the dead, including the British victim, and to the wounded. Second, the police officers who ran towards the gunfire and ended it within minutes are exactly the kind of police I praised earlier in this piece. Third, in my view politicians should not rush to pin a label on a killer before the evidence is in, whoever is doing it and whichever side it suits. The government's own spokesman later urged restraint. They should have shown it from the start.

On Monday night thousands of people walked through Kraków in a silent march, led by the President and the Prime Minister, two bitter political rivals, side by side (BBC). Kraków has been in mourning until today. This morning's Independence Day ceremonies there were pared back, with no parade or patriotic procession, and a minute's silence for the victims (City of Kraków). That, too, is very Polish: grief and pride, held together, on the same day.

What Britain could learn from Poland

The eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw.

So what is the lesson? I came away with five, and they are opinions, so argue with me in the comments.

• Celebrate who you are, not only what you lost. Remembrance matters, but a nation also needs a day that says, without apology, we are glad to exist.

• Teach your history with pride as well as honesty. Poland does not hide its darker chapters, but it does not ask its children to be ashamed of being Polish either.

• Open the doors. Free museums on the national day, choirs on the streets and politicians among the crowd make heritage something people own, not something they are lectured about.

• Keep the streets safe. Visible, confident policing that protects ordinary people is not authoritarian. It is the basic deal between a state and its citizens.

• Guard your sovereignty. A country that has been partitioned three times knows that independence is never a gift from great powers. It is, as Piłsudski taught, a daily act of will.

The morning after the march I went back to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The drums were silent and only the wreaths remained. Two sentries stood guard with bayonets fixed, and the scars of war have been left on the old arcade deliberately, so nobody forgets. Poland lost millions of its citizens in the Second World War. Standing there, I thought of the line so often attributed to Orwell: that the most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. Poland has refused to let that happen, again and again. Britain could do worse than follow its example. Be like Poland.

If you want to understand why Poles feel the way they do, a good history of Poland is the best place to start. And if you are interested in what I saw in another European capital, read The Destruction of Paris: Four Films, One City, and Why It Must Be Saved.

If you go: Warsaw on Independence Day

• The official ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier builds up through the morning, with the main events around noon. The square itself is closed to the public, so arrive early and expect to watch from the barriers.

• Many museums open their doors on the day, some for free. When I went, the University of Warsaw museum and the history museum next to it were both free to enter.

• The public Independence March sets off in the afternoon and heads across the Vistula towards the National Stadium. It is huge, slow-moving and very loud. Families take children, but if bangs and flares bother you, watch from a side street.

• Dress for November: it was four or five degrees with drizzle and fog when I went. Gloves, a scarf and a waterproof are essential.

• Poland uses the złoty, not the euro. Cards work almost everywhere, but carry some cash for food stalls, scarves and flags on the day. Rates vary a lot between exchange bureaux, so compare them first with Money Maps, which shows bureau rates on a map and what you get after fees (free on the App Store).

• Book your hotel early, because the city fills up. Flying into Modlin? Here is how to get from Modlin Airport to central Warsaw.

Where to stay in Warsaw

For Independence Day, stay central: around the Old Town and the Royal Route you can walk to Piłsudski Square and the start of the march. Use the map below to compare places to stay, or browse hotels on Booking.com and Airbnb:

Things to do in Warsaw

Old Town walking tours, Warsaw Uprising and Second World War tours, Chopin concerts and day trips are easy to book. See tours and things to do in Warsaw on Viator:

Plan your trip

• Hotels: Booking.com

• Apartments: Airbnb

• Tours and activities: Viator Warsaw

• Car hire: Discover Cars

• Private airport transfer: GetTransfer

• eSIM: Roamless (code WONDERING for 20% off)

• Currency: Money Maps (free on the App Store)

Flights

Compare fares to Warsaw below.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Poland celebrate Independence Day on 11 November?

On 11 November 1918, the day the First World War armistice took effect, Józef Piłsudski took command of Polish forces in Warsaw and Poland re-emerged as an independent state after 123 years of partition.

Is the Independence March in Warsaw safe for visitors?

When I walked it, it felt safe and good-natured, with lots of families, though there are many flares and bangers. Keep to the edges if you have children or dislike loud noise, and check local advice on the day.

What happened in Kraków on 7 November?

A gunman killed six people and wounded 15 in and around the Main Market Square. Prosecutors are treating it as a terrorist offence; the suspect died in hospital and his motive has not been established. See the sources linked in the article.

Can you visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw?

Yes, it is open to the public in Piłsudski Square, with a guard of honour. On Independence Day morning the square is closed for the official ceremony, so visit later in the day or the day after.

Save on your travel money too

Poland uses the złoty, not the euro, and the rate you get can vary a lot between exchange bureaux, even in the same street. Before you change money in Warsaw, check Money Maps, which shows bureau rates on a map and what you actually get after fees. Download Money Maps free on the App Store. For data, I use Roamless; use code WONDERING for 20% off.

Sources: what I saw and filmed in Warsaw on 11 and 12 November 2025 (my Be Like Poland film on YouTube). Kraków: Poland's National Prosecutor's Office (9 November), BBC, AP, The Guardian, DW, RMF24, Remix News and the City of Kraków; posts on X are linked as examples of unverified material circulating online. Constitutional Tribunal: Politico Europe, AP, Euronews and The Irish Times. Smolensk: Wikipedia's article on the 2010 crash and its investigations. Details were correct as reported at the time of writing on 11 November and may change as investigations continue.

Photos: military ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by Heshq (CC BY-SA 4.0); Józef Piłsudski Monument by Hayden Soloviev (CC BY 4.0); Kraków Cloth Hall by Igor123121 (CC BY 4.0); Constitutional Tribunal by Adrian Grycuk (CC BY-SA 3.0 PL); eternal flame by Ethan Doyle White (CC BY-SA 4.0); all via Wikimedia Commons.

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Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman