Poland held solemn ceremonies early on Sunday, marking the 85th anniversary of German Nazi forces invading and bombing the central European country’s territory at the start of World War II.

Sirens wailed and a memorial bell tolled as Polish President Andrzej Duda and deputy ambassador of Germany, Robert Rohde, attended an observance in the town of Wielun, the first civilian target of German bombing in the small hours of 1 September 1939 in Europe.

Some 1,200 people were killed in the attack.

“We can say that we have forgiven even though we remember, even though the pain is persisting, and even though there are still tens of thousands of those who have been directly hurt by the Germans,” Duda said. He also called on Berlin to make amends.

Meanwhile, at a monument on the Baltic Sea’s Westerplatte peninsula, where a military outpost was shelled by a German warship just minutes after Wielun was attacked, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz laid wreaths and attended a memorial roll call for fallen soldiers.

At the time, the outpost’s outnumbered troops fought for seven days before surrendering to the Germans, becoming a symbol of heroism and patriotism.

Tusk said war was present again in the region as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022, grinds on.

He said, in a clear reference to Germany, it wasn’t enough to speak about “reconciliation” or to “bend your head in a sense of guilt,” adding that the best sign of lessons learned from the past is “the readiness to organise the entire western world, Europe, and NATO for the defence against aggression that we are witnessing today in the battlefields of Ukraine.”

“Today we will not say ‘never again’. Today we must say ‘never again alone’,” the prime minister said. Tusk also said Poland was building “the most modern army in Europe, one of the strongest in Europe” to actively contribute to the unity and strength of the NATO defence alliance and the European continent, “to defend our civilisation,” and “never again expose our homeland to any risks”.

In more than five years of WWII and brutal German occupation, Poland lost 6 million citizens, or a sixth of its population, of which 3 million were Jews.

Poland’s previous right-wing government demanded $1.3 trillion (€1.17tr) in damages from Germany. Tusk’s current cabinet has toned the demand down to some form of compensation that could serve to strengthen the ties between the two neighbours.

The country also suffered huge losses to its infrastructure, industry, and agriculture.

Germany insists the matter is closed because it paid damages to the Moscow-led East Bloc after the war. Warsaw says it did not receive any share of it.

However, addressing attendees at the Wielun observance on Sunday, Duda said: “Forgiveness and the admission of guilt are one thing, but compensation for the damage caused is another thing. And this issue has not been settled yet.”