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Setting up KOR

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Help for the workers
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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The fact that in both Radom and Ursus the beatings were carried out in the same way, that technically they followed the same pattern, indicates that these people were specially trained to beat in this way, using these methods and with such brutality. We responded by organising aid for the workers. Firstly, they were people who'd been arrested some of whom were later tried in court, secondly, a vast number of people lost their jobs and not only in Radom and Ursus because this spread throughout Poland, wherever there were any strikes, people were kicked out of their jobs sometimes en masse and then finding new jobs was made harder for them, so there was a period when these people had trouble surviving, they didn't have the means to feed their families. To say nothing of the fact that it soon transpired that legal aid was also needed, we had to search for solicitors who really cared about defending these workers, and in many cases, we had to look for doctors also who cared if these people… if they were punitively thrown out of their workplace, they forfeited the right to medical care and so we had to find doctors who, despite this, wouldn't balk at admitting to hospital a person who was seriously ill as a result of a beating even though he didn't have the right to be there unless he paid vast amounts of money the way that the so-called private initiative does, that is, people who run some tiny manufacturing enterprise or something like that.

To, że i w Radomiu i w Ursusie bito w ten sam sposób, miało to technicznie ten sam... ten sam scenariusz. Wskazuje na to, że ci ludzie byli specjalnie szkoleni do takiego właśnie bicia, takimi metodami i z taką brutalnością. No, odpowiedzią mojego środowiska na to było rozpoczęcie akcji pomocy robotnikom. Po pierwsze, byli to ludzie aresztowani z których część miała po tym procesy; po drugie, ogromna ilość ludzi wyrzucanych z pracy i to już nie tylko Radom i Ursus, to ogarniało całą Polskę, wszędzie, gdziekolwiek pojawił się jakiś...jakieś strajki, to wszędzie tam wyrzucano ludzi i to nieraz masowo z pracy i utrudniano im później uzyskanie nowej pracy, czyli był taki okres w którym ci ludzie mieli no...trudność z przeżyciem, nie mieli za co wyżywić swoich rodzin. Nie mówiąc o tym, że szybko się okazało, że jest potrzebna również pomoc prawna, wyszukanie... wyszukiwanie takich adwokatów, którym będzie naprawdę zależało na obronie tych robotników i w wielu wypadkach szukanie takich lekarzy, którym będzie zależało na tym, żeby ci ludzie...jeżeli byli karnie wyrzucani z zakładów pracy to tracili prawo do pomocy lekarskiej i trzeba było szukać takich lekarzy, którzy mimo to, że człowiek jest tego pozbawiony, nie zawaha się człowieka ciężko chorego na skutek pobicia umieścić w szpitalu, mimo że mu to prawo nie przysługuje, chyba że zapłaci jakieś ogromne sumy, tak jak płaci u nas prywatna inicjatywa tak zwana czyli ludzie, którzy mają jakieś drobniutkie rzemieślnicze przedsiębiorstwa czy coś takiego.

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was one of Poland's best known political activists. He was also a writer and a literary critic. As a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1976, following worker protests, he co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). His active opposition to Poland's communist authorities led to his arrest and imprisonment on several occasions. In 1987, he re-established and headed the Polish Socialist Party. Two years later, he was elected to the Polish Senate. He died in 1991 while still in office. For his significant work, Lipski was honoured with the Cross of the Valorous (Krzyż Walecznych), posthumously with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1991) and with the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle (2006).

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: Radom, Ursus, Poland

Duration: 2 minutes, 7 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 14 March 2011