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In the spring sunshine, sirens and bells marked the two minute silence at midday across Poland. At the church of St Stanislaw Kostka in a suburb of Warsaw, the silence was particularly poignant.
Father Jerzy Popielusko, the chaplain of the Solidarity trade union who was murdered by the former communist secret police, is buried here.
And it was here that Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria used to come to Sunday service.
Their pews were kept empty today, draped in a huge red-and-white Polish flag and a black ribbon.
The smiling pictures of the president and his wife were placed in front of the altar, together with the names of the other 94 people who died on board the presidential jet in Smolensk.
Young children gathered around, eagerly putting their hands up when the priest asked them why Poland was in mourning.
Outside the packed church, a group of elderly people wiped their tears.
'Distinct, not divisive'
A former Solidarity activist sobbed as she showed me a medal pinned to her black winter coat.
"I received it this last Wednesday from the head of the president's office, and now he's dead too," Danuta Kaniewska said.
"We've lost our elite. We're all in pain."
The signs of mourning are everywhere.
Polish flags and black ribbons hang from balconies and windows, outside banks, cafes and shops, on police cars and taxis.
For Lejb Fogelman, an international lawyer who has known Lech Kaczysnki and his twin brother Jaroslaw for 50 years, this is a personal loss. He calls the dead president by his diminutive, Leszek.
They went to school together, striking a close but unusual friendship.
"I was a Jewish boy from a small town," he told me in his book-lined living-room. "They were very patriotic and Catholic."
'Second Katyn'
It was from the Kaczynski twins that young Lejb heard the name Katyn - the 1940 Soviet massacre of more than 20,000 Poles - mentioned for the first time in school.
"The history of Katyn was hidden, it wasn't taught. The communist powers didn't want to teach about the Soviet crimes, but to the twins it was an extremely important event. I remember that some boys were doubting it and we almost had a fight."
One of Lech Kaczynski's major ambitions, Mr Fogelman explained, was that "the world should recognise the harm done to Poland."
To many outside the country, in Russia and the rest of the European Union, Mr Kaczynski was a divisive figure. But that's not how his old friend remembers him.
"I see him not as a divisive, but a very distinct figure, a person who tried to preserve certain values in a world which tries to forget about them."
Outside the presidential palace, young people are singing.
Late into the night, Poles young and old have come to light candles and lay flowers.
One of them was Tomasz, a law student, who at 21 is as old as Poland's democracy.
He did not share most of Lech Kaczynski's political views. But he cried in his bed when he heard the news of the plane crash on Saturday morning.
And today, he is in mourning for what Poles call their second Katyn.This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.