Word: polese
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In the heady days of August 1980, the closed gate of the Lenin Shipyard in the Baltic port city of Gdansk became a symbol of the spirit of Solidarity, the newly formed independent trade union movement. It was here that Lech Walesa, the movement's leader, first made his demands...
Many Poles had been fearing a violent reaction to Solidarity's growing militancy. "Operation Birdcage" is what they called the anticipated crackdown, in which the union's freer spirits would presumably be caged. Even Walesa, upon learning the crackdown had begun, angrily told Solidarity leaders in Gdansk: "Now you've...
Were the Polish people reassured? On the contrary, they were in shock and mourning. The queues at food shops, a familiar sight in contemporary Poland, had resumed. But the shoppers, their cheeks red from the deep cold (5° F in many places), were sullen. In the countryside, the only visible...
Some Poles went into hiding, moving every night from one place to another. A university professor who lives with a woman in Warsaw was hiking six miles back and forth every day to his own unoccupied house on the outskirts of town to keep the snow shoveled from his sidewalk...
Partly because of the prevailing uncertainty and partly because of the communications blackout, public response to the crackdown seemed muted. The population was depressed and weary from the crises that had beset the country in recent months. Poles were also disillusioned by the disunity within Solidarity, traumatized by the newly...