Word: warsaw
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...Poland's 36 million people are practicing Catholics. A deeply religious man, Walesa always wears on his lapel a badge depicting the so-called Black Madonna, a portrait of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child that is in the Czestochowa monastery, 125 miles southwest of Warsaw...
Lech Walesa had the overwhelming majority of the Polish people behind him, and to them he conveyed a compelling message of hope. The Poles will not forget?they never have. During Poland's 16-month awakening, the priests and parishioners of a church in central Warsaw used to sing together joyfully: "O Lord, please bless our free fatherland." On the first Sunday after martial law was declared, the words of that hymn were changed back to those traditionally sung when the country was under foreign domination. "O Lord," the congregation sang, "please return us our free fatherland." ?By Thomas...
Firmness and patience paid off: the government team finally gave in on almost all of the workers' demands. In addition to the right to strike and form unions, the Warsaw regime granted concessions extraordinary in a Communist country, including reduced censorship and access to the state broadcasting networks for the unions and the church. At a nationally televised ceremony, where strikers and government representatives stood side by side and sang the Polish national anthem, Walesa signed what became known as the Gdansk agreement with a giant souvenir pen bearing the likeness of John Paul...
...even after waiting for hours, Poles might enter a store and find it cleaned out. Meat was in particularly short supply, especially the pork that Poles consider to be a staple of their diet. In Warsaw, just before the imposition of martial law, the entire stock of one butcher consisted of half a dozen large salami sausages, which housewives eagerly bought in slices. The hooks that in better times had held dangling sides of beef and pork were being used by one Warsaw butcher with a green thumb as supports for a philodendron that was growing across the ceiling...
...treasure. The result: a primitive system of barter. A cab driver with a can of oil could trade with a café manager for a pound of coffee. A pair of leather boots would get a sack of potatoes, and a bottle of vodka was pure gold. A Warsaw schoolteacher marveled when one enterprising boy in her class announced that he was willing to trade girl's boots that his family had snatched up in the frantic buying binge for a pair he could wear. He closed the deal in minutes...