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Making the unpalatable palatable

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Causes of Berlin workers' riot
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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Z początku w ogóle nie wiedzieliśmy nic, co się w tym Berlinie stało. Prasa zaczęła pisać o jakichś agentach imperializmu, którzy przeszli z Berlina Zachodniego do Berlina Wschodniego, coś tam narozrabiali – właściwie trudno zrozumieć, ilu tych agentów musiało być, żeby były aż takie skutki, o których warto pisać w prasie – potem okazało się, że tam wyszły na ulice czołgi. No jednak radia tutaj słuchaliśmy na ogół w Warszawie, w dzisiejszych czasach ludzi trudno odciąć zupełnie od informacji, no dowiedzieliśmy się, że w pewnym momencie na budowie Stalinallee – w Berlinie wielka aleja, wielka aleja, która jest, no, pięć, dziesięć razy, nie wiem ile razy powiększonym MDM-em warszawskim – robotnicy z przyczyn ekonomicznych, jak to się wiele ruchów tutaj w krajach, w tych tak zwanych demoludach się zdarza, wyszli na ulicę i rozpoczęły się pochód, rozruchy, interweniowało wojsko sowieckie, czołgi, które zresztą pierwsza rzecz to odcięły Berlin Wschodni od Zachodniego. Dla nas to było tutaj – dla mnie, moich przyjaciół – było bardzo szokujące. Po pierwsze, nie mieliśmy wątpliwości, że tu nie chodzi o żadnych agentów – jeżeli masowo wychodzą murarze po prostu na ulice, to to chodzi prawdopodobnie o coś innego. Nie mogliśmy zrozumieć, jak to jest, że to Niemcy coś takiego zrobili, podczas gdy nic takiego się nie działo w Warszawie, w Pradze, w Budapeszcie. Dlaczego... dlaczego akurat Niemcy? Skądinąd nam się zdawało, że właśnie w Niemczech jest to z wielu względów mniej prawdopodobne, chociażby dlatego, że mieli ten okres hitleryzmu za sobą i tam prawdopodobnie dosyć często mogło być, że ktoś mógł być oskarżony o to, że sam był w Hitlerjugend, że ojciec był w partii hitlerowskiej, że nawet to, że był podoficerem w Wehrmachcie mogło być na jego niekorzyść – to są elementy powodujące strach, elementy, które dużą rolę w terrorze u nas zawsze odgrywały, więc tak się wydawało, że w Niemczech tym bardziej to jest trudne i skomplikowane. Mogę tylko na korzyść swoich... swoich kolegów powiedzieć, że różnie kombinowaliśmy i różnie tutaj główkowaliśmy, co tu się stało, natomiast tylko jednego byliśmy pewni: że tu o żadnych agentów Zachodniego Berlina chodzi; że wówczas, jak po prostu przychodzą agenci, to coś innego się dzieje, a nie masowe rozruchy na ulicach.

At first, we knew nothing. Something had happened in Berlin. The press started writing about imperialist agents who had infiltrated East Berlin from West Berlin causing some sort of trouble. It was a bit hard to understand how many agents there must have been to have had enough of an effect that it was worth writing about in the papers. Later, it turned out that tanks had taken to the streets. After all, we generally did listen to the radio in Warsaw. Today, it would be difficult to cut people off entirely from sources of information. We found out that suddenly, on the construction site of Stalinalle in Berlin, a massive avenue, massive avenue that is five, 10, I don't know how many times bigger than the MDM in Warsaw, workers took to the streets because of economic conditions, as so often happens in these countries, these countries known as 'people's democracies', there was a march, a protest, the Soviet army intervened, tanks which straight away cut East Berlin off from West Berlin. For us here, for me, for my friends, this was profoundly shocking. Firstly, we were certain that this had nothing to do with agents of any kind. If crowds of bricklayers are taking to the streets then it's most likely that something else is at stake here. We couldn't understand how it was that the Germans had done something like this when nothing of the kind was happening in Warsaw, in Prague, in Budapest. Why Germany? We had imagined that for a variety of reasons, it was much less likely to happen in Germany if only because of their history of Nazism, and so it was quite likely that someone could be accused of having been in the Hitler Jungend, that their father had been a member of the Nazi party, or that even if he'd been a non-commissioned officer in the Wermacht that could be held against him. All of these things create fear and have always played a big role in the terror we've experienced, so in Germany it's even harder and more complicated. To my colleagues' credit, I can say that we thought about this trying to figure out what had happened here but there was only one thing we were certain of and that was that it wasn't about agents from West Berlin because when agents are involved, other things happen, not mass riots in the streets.

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: Berlin, Stalinallee

Duration: 3 minutes, 17 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 09 March 2011