The main ceremony took place at a memorial to the fallen miners next to Katowice's Wujek coal mine on Saturday, according to news outlets.
Officials and local residents laid wreaths at the monument and paid tribute to the victims of the communist crackdown of December 16, 1981.
President Andrzej Duda issued a letter to the participants, which was read out during the ceremony.
The president paid "homage to the heroic miners" who were killed for "standing up to the communist regime."
Duda stated that their sacrifice "was not in vain" as Poles, "united by the spirit of Solidarity," eventually regained "a free Poland, our own sovereign state" and can enjoy "full civil freedoms."
The president said that the miners must be "honoured and remembered" and the events of December 16, 1981 in the Katowice coal mine represented a "symbol of our Polish road to freedom."
Miners from the Wujek coal mine in Katowice went on strike on December 13, 1981, the day that martial law was declared by Poland’s communist authorities to stifle rising opposition headed by the Solidarity movement.
The strikers called for an end to martial law, during which the authorities brought tanks to the streets, cut telephone lines and introduced a strict curfew.
The strike was brutally suppressed by a special platoon in the communist riot police which opened fire on the miners, leaving nine miners dead and 21 wounded.
Wednesday marked 42 years since Poland's former communist authorities imposed martial law.
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Source: prezydent.pl, polskieradio.pl, RMF FM
