On Sunday, while he was onstage at a charity event, the mayor of Gdańsk was stabbed, and later died. Green Infidel, who translated a video of the incident, describes what happened:

On Sunday January 13 the mayor of the northern Polish city of Gdańsk (known for being the home of the Solidarity movement), Paweł Adamowicz, was stabbed on stage while live on TV in a large-scale nationwide annual charity concert. The knifeman somehow made his way on to the stage at the same time as the mayor was present (apparently the assailant managed to obtain a press pass). He proceeded to knife the mayor, then took time to walk around the stage with his arms raised, and even addressed the crowd to say he had “just killed” the mayor, before finally he was tackled to the ground. The wounds suffered by the mayor were serious — apparently he was stabbed close to the heart, and on Monday afternoon (January 14), after many hours fighting for his life in hospital, he was pronounced dead. The video below captures the surreal moment of the knifing (at 0:17, the knifeman runs from left to right on the stage, presumably to stab Mr Adamowicz, before running back and then standing on the stage with his arms raised in the air, before addressing the crowd, which was totally oblivious to what had just happened).

It’s hard to see what happens onstage in the video — even the audience is unaware of the attack until well after it happens.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Here’s a BBC article about the attack.

The big question now is what sort of ripples the tragic incident will cause in Polish politics. Green Infidel adds this further analysis:

Paweł Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdańsk for more than twenty years, and the recipient of numerous “mayor of the year” awards, was known for being a big fan of accepting “refugees” and promoting Multiculturalism, and was a strong opponent of the governing Law and Justice Party. There’s nothing to suggest this was the motive — the knifeman on the stage, known only as Stefan W., said he was “unfairly imprisoned by the former Civic Platform government. This is why Adamowicz has just now been killed.” He was apparently released from prison around a month ago, after a five-year sentence for armed robberies of two banks, and had also received psychiatric treatment. Nonetheless, as Adamowicz was such a big opponent of the Law and Justice party, this is bound to have repercussions. Fingers are already being pointed at the Right for fomenting a “climate of hate”, especially Polish state TV, TVP, which had run many news segments attacking Adamowicz. Also, this happened at the “Great Orchestra of Christmas help”, a charity event which raises money for equipment for causes such as children’s’ hospitals, but which is organised and promoted by prominent leftists, and attacked by many on the Right as being hostile to Christian values (the head of the campaign, Jerzy Owsiak, has given statements supporting euthanasia and abortion rights, and runs Woodstock, an annual hippie-style concert in Poland). As such, this may well be a significant moment in Poland, especially during an election year…

Now we’ll just wait and see what happens. Green Infidel will keep us informed.

Video transcript: