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Gajka's role in our release

RELATED STORIES

Legal sanctions
Jacek Kuroń Social activist
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No ale potem zaraz przewieziono nas na... do Mostowa i dali nam sankcje. Oni nie chcieli dać nam sankcji, ponieważ prowadzili pertraktacje i nie chcieli, żeby nasza sprawa znalazła się w żądaniach strajkowych. Chcieli nas przetrzymać tymi 48. godzinami do końca. Ponieważ pertraktacje już... bo w niedzielę oni już podpisali porozumienie, więc oni w związku z tym w sobotę przewieźli nas cichcem po południu do... na Rakowiecką. I ci ubecy wszyscy, którzy ze mną rozmawiali pułkownicy, wszyscy mówili... wiozą mnie, ja patrzę, stoją tramwaje i mówię: "Co to, strajk komunikacji?" Oni mówią: "Wszystko strajkuje, tu już jest taki burdel" – mówią. "Panie Kuroń, że jak się to zaraz nie rozpierdoli, to będzie cud". "To" – mówię – "nikt nie panuje nad niczym". Więc dalej, przyszedł prokurator i mówi: "Panie Kuroń, jest mi strasznie przykro, ale ja muszę Panu dać sankcje". I ja mówię: "Niech się Pan nie martwi, na krótko Pan daje". I on mówi: "Tak, mam nadzieję, że na krótko". A tymczasem nie była to wcale taka prosta sprawa. Myślę sobie, że oni mieli ten pomysł, który później chcieli jeszcze raz z doskoku zrealizować... mnie i Moczulskiego zamknąć. Oni myśleli, że oni nas wtedy tu puszczą, a nas zamkną... tylko że już po ukończonych pertraktacjach.

Soon after that, they brought us to Mostowo and imposed legal sanctions on us. They had wanted to avoid doing this because they hadn't wanted our case to be part of any of the striker's demands, and wanted to hold us using 48-hour detentions until the end. Negotiations had already... they'd had already signed an agreement on Sunday and because of that, they took us quietly on Saturday afternoon to Rakowiecka Street. And all those UB agents who talked with me, colonels, they were all saying, they were transferring me and I looked and saw that all the trams had stopped. So I said, 'What's this, a strike of the transport system?' To which they said, 'Everything's on strike. There's such chaos out there, Mr Kuroń', they said, 'that it'll be a miracle if the whole thing doesn't collapse in a heap at any minute.' 'So', I said, 'that means no one has any control over anything.' So then the prosecutor came and said, 'I'm terribly sorry, Mr Kuroń, but I'm going to have to impose legal sanctions on you.' I said, 'Don't worry about it, they only give short sentences there.' 'Yes', he said, 'I hope it will only be a short one.' However, it wasn't all that simple. I think they'd already come up with the idea which they later tried to put into practice, which was to lock Moczulski and myself up. They thought that they'd let us go there but lock us up here except that we had already completed the negotiations.

The late Polish activist, Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004), had an influential but turbulent political career, helping transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and later became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy.

Listeners: Marcel Łoziński Jacek Petrycki

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Tags: Mostowo, Rakowiecka Street, UB, Leszek Moczulski

Duration: 1 minute, 18 seconds

Date story recorded: 1987

Date story went live: 12 June 2008