Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus said Sunday that a "strong and cohesive" European Union in "close alliance" with the United States was the best guarantee of freedom for his country and Poland, according to dpa. Adamkus, in the Polish capital Warsaw to attend Poland's Independence Day celebrations, said that "history teaches us that freedom is not a present, but instead has to be hard fought for. It must, like other democratic values, be defended." He praised the "heroism" of the Polish soldiers who successfully fought against Russian Bolshevik troops in 1920 and "one of the cruelest ideologies of the 20th century, communism." The end of the First World War on November 11, 1918 saw Poland regain its independence for the first time in 123 years. Prior to that its territory had been divided up between Russia, Prussia and Austria. Polish President Lech Kaczynski described the participation of Adamkus in Sunday's ceremonies as "symbolic" and said Poland's change of government would not change the historically close relationship between the two states. Poland and Lithuania have worked closely together since the late Middles Ages and for over two hundred years made up a commonwealth.
