Word: silesia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Work stoppages also broke out at the massive Nowa Huta steel complex, near Cracow. There were even reports of strike activity in the mining region of Silesia, Gierek's birthplace and political stronghold. At the Gdansk shipyard, which remained the nerve center of the Baltic upheaval, workers set up a central committee that claimed to represent the striking factories and enterprises along the coast...
That is a sorry comedown for a leader who always had a reputation for getting things done. As Party Secretary for Upper Silesia, Gierek was noted for being ready to fight central authorities in Warsaw to gain benefits for his workers; under his tenure they enjoyed the highest standard of living in the country. Gierek came from a coal-mining family, and his father, grandfather and an uncle all died in mining accidents. In 1923, after his father's death, Gierek's mother took him to France, where at the age of 13 he began Communist...
...born Joy-Friederike Victoria Gessner in Troppau, Silesia, into the civilized elegance of the Habsburg Empire just before World War I. Even then, on the family estate, she would often accompany the resident gamekeeper through thickets filled with deer and foxes. She went on to study widely-music, dressmaking, metal crafts and premedical subjects-and in 1935 was married to an Austrian businessman. But two years later she went off on vacation to Kenya where, she recalled later, she "fell in love with this wonderful country," and stayed. A second marriage, to Botanist Peter Bally, foundered in 1944 on safari...