Anna Walentynowicz, Jadwiga Staniszkis, Henryka Krzywonos, Ewa Ossowska and Alina Pieńkowska are clearly associated with "Solidarity". But what about the other ladies who created the most important civic organization in 20th-century Poland? We present five girls from "Solidarity" that you have never heard of. And you should!
There were many of them. They helped as best they could. Some of them were actively involved in the activities of Solidarity:they distributed leaflets, prepared articles, and worked on the radio. The latter supported them "at home". They cooked them in the canteen, brought them clean clothes or the necessary medicines. It is difficult to list them all. But some are really worth it.
High school graduate behind bars
They came for me a few minutes after six. The doorbell rang. Parents, still sleepy, opened it. Three SS officers stormed inside - recalls Beata Górczyńska-Szmytkowska in the book "Girls from Solidarity" by Anna Herbich. She was eighteen at the time, and she was due to pass her high school diploma in a few days. Life gave her a real maturity exam.
A student of "Topolówka" in Gdańsk plundered herself in the communist regime for a long time. Together with her parents, she exhibited at the gate of the Gdańsk shipyard during the 1980 strikes. When crossing the thresholds of Secondary School No. 3 at 7 Topolowa Street in Gdańsk, she was already heavily saturated with solidarity sentiments. Its main task was to co-organize "black marches" and silence marches against the communists.
Most of the women who participated in the creation of Solidarity remain forgotten. Some, like Anna Walentynowicz, were given back their honor and memory. Others remain unknown (photographer:A. Iwański, license:CC BY-SA 3.0).
Together with her colleagues, she created the illegal BIT radio. Her parents' apartment became a box for the distribution of opposition tissue paper. Due to suspicion of this practice, the SB searched her room in April 1986. Copies of the opposition leaflets were well hidden, but still fell into the hands of the secret police. There was no turning back. The 18-year-old girl was taken into custody without mercy.
I took my Bible and Gandhi's autobiography with me to the prison. Unfortunately, they took them to a deposit right away. Fortunately, my parents allowed me to pass textbooks to my cell. So I was able to repeat the material in prison, initially I hoped that they would let me go to high school final exams and college exams - said Górczyńska-Szmytkowska Annie Herbich.
She spent the whole spring in a well-like cell with real criminal criminals. Her schoolmates fought for her release, intervened Bishop Gocłowski himself - to no avail. She did not manage to leave until July. Despite the prison trauma, she did not break with "Solidarity".
While studying at the Catholic University of Lublin, she continued to distribute forbidden texts and met with the people of Solidarity. In 1988 she was called up again by the militia. This time it was only imprisoned for a few hours. Today he still lives in Gdańsk and works at the State Archives. In 2013, President Bronisław Komorowski awarded her the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for her activity in the democratic opposition.
A young lady from a good home and brawls in the streets
Zomowiec ran up to me and gave me a powerful kick. I fell onto the sidewalk and he started hitting me with his club. Blindly, with all my might. He smashed my head, I was covered in blood. I passed out.
I only woke up when the paramedics took me off the ground and tried to move me to the ambulance. The snow on the sidewalk was red… - this is how Janina Wehrstein summarizes her participation in the strike pacified by the ZOMO in December 1981 in "Girls from Solidarity".
Brought up in a wealthy family near Lviv, the "bridesmaid" from an early age painfully felt the persecution of the communists (her family was oppressed by the NKVD). In her late teens, during World War II, she helped her aunt to buy Jews out of prison. In 1956, for the first time she had a strong conflict with the communist authorities. She was jailed for 48 hours for ridiculing the "army of my brother country".
As soon as "Solidarity" was created, Janina felt that she had to join these people. In 1982, she was arrested for printing and distributing anti-regime leaflets. It was stated in the arrest report that he was storing gasoline for terrorist purposes. She saw freedom only after a year. Not for long. After the amnesty on the occasion of John Paul II's pilgrimage to Poland in 1983, she was still under censorship. In 1985 she was sent to prison again.
Joanna Duda-Gwiazda, one of the most important women of "Solidarity". Today, more and more is said about the role of women in overthrowing the Polish People's Republic, but little is known about them. It is difficult to get even photos of the women this article tells about (source:Institute of Civic Affairs, source:CC BY-SA 2.0).
For the next 12 months she endured harassment, beatings, intimidation and the company of murderers with whom she shared a cell. After leaving the prison, she became a plenipotentiary for Gdańsk of the Warsaw Commission of Intervention and Legal Advice established by Zbigniew and Zofia Romaszewski. Her main occupation was buying out people who were threatened with imprisonment because of anti-communist activities.
Between running to hearings, she handed out leaflets and brochures. During one of the actions of putting up solidarity posters on the first day of Christmas 1986, she was rolled up by the police. There were crowds at her trial, and the Wehrstein "number" was talked about on the coast for a long time. SB bent a parole on it. Until the fall of the commune, she did not free herself from the company of "sad lords".
During the famous march to the monument to the victims of December '70 in April 1989, she called for peace and not to attack ZOMO. She personally saved some of the documentation that the communists tried to destroy from burning. Currently, he works in the Management Board of the Gdańsk branch of the Katyn Families Association. For her services in "Solidarity", Janina was honored with the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Popiełuszko's right hand
She was very close to Father Popiełuszko. It was with him that she shared among the members of Solidarity the gifts sent from the West. It not only supported the existing opposition cells, but also actively founded them. She organized "Solidarity" circles among teachers in Mazovia. I was one of the people who literally went crazy about "Solidarity" in 1980. They threw themselves into the trade union activity - says Hanna Grabińska in "Girls from Solidarity".
Hanna Grabińska was the right hand of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko (author:Andrzej Iwański, license:CC BY-SA 3.0).
Thanks to Hanna's determination, dozens of unionist families could make ends meet. With her well-worn Crockery, she traveled thousands of kilometers to get and distribute clothes, food and chemicals sent by Poles from Great Britain. She ran a sizeable warehouse for nine years. It acted like the best courier company. It's hard to count how many parcels she shipped.
She had one rule - she put a holy picture in each one, and after the death of Father Popiełuszko, his picture. Seasoned with her uneasy wartime childhood, she fought like a lion to ensure that the gifts sent from abroad would not be plundered by the communists. The opposition devoted herself to the fullest, but did not like the final face of "Solidarity".
The real "Solidarity" ended in 1989. Fortunately, I did not have to look at its fall:on July 19, 1989 - on the day General Wojciech Jaruzelski was elected "president" - I left the country - revealed in Herbich's book "Girls from Solidarity".
Attack of members of the ZOMO special platoon in plain clothes on a peaceful demonstration organized by KPN on May 3, 1987 at Wawel (author:Maciej Gawlikowski, "screenshot" from a film made by the SB)
Recovery for not smiling
A scene like a bad comedy. Izabella Lipniewicz, a young lab worker, is trying to break through the city with her friend. Their pockets are full of opposing leaflets. Suddenly, the man approaches the policeman and hands him a tissue paper. Unfortunately, instead of bursts of laughter, I am in prison. Jokes and jokes broke when Izabela was brought before a Navy court. Only the sentence was not funny - 3 years in prison.
After signing the August agreements, she joined the union and immediately started creating an illegal press. Three days after the declaration of martial law, she was imprisoned. Behind the bars, she felt the mission of "converting" her fellow prisoners. The "evangelization" did not last long, as it was quickly transferred to a high-security department.
Conditions in the Fordon red ward were so disastrous that the episcopate and Amnesty International intervened. So the communists started the renovation, and for that time they sent us to the prison in Grudziądz. Grudziądz was a prison for recidivism.
As if this is what the youth would say today - hardcore to the max. No sewage system, but large 20 liter boilers in cells. Every day this boiler had to be emptied of all excrements - Izabella Lipniewicz confessed in the book "Girls from Solidarity".
They are locked up, she did not lose her spirit, she participated in hunger strikes and relayed information to Radio Free Europe. Separated from two children, after finishing her sentence, she became even more involved in opposition activities. Apart from distributing tissue paper and helping other trade unionists, she was also associated with Fighting Solidarity.
Flirting off the train
Lucyna Jamka was a master of female perversity. When she was about to transport the "shammy goods" by train, she looked for a high-ranking officer, came over and became his best friend. Little coquetry, and she was almost sure that no one would inspect it during the journey. Despite this camouflage, she was on the list of people wanted by the security services.
I went into hiding for eight years, seven months, and eighteen days. Only after that time had passed did the authorities cancel the arrest warrant sent for me. Only then could I reveal myself and return to normal life. When did this happen? August 1, 1990 - Lucyna Jamka tells her story in the book "Girls from Solidarity".
These long nine years have been a difficult time for me. I had no contact with my family, I had to stop my academic career. I fell into the ground - he recalls. Why was she hated so much? After signing the August agreements, she founded trade unions in Silesia. She encouraged strikes, distributed tissue paper, persuaded workers.
Underground publications - the so-called "tissue paper" - from the 1980s (source:public domain).
Although she knew that she was being watched and that she might be imprisoned, she continued to support "Solidarity". She organized aid for the striking Huta Katowice. She created the Regional Resistance Group, secretly built the structures of "Solidarity". In 1982, she headed the Regional Coordination Committee of NSZZ "Solidarność", she also led Fighting Solidarity. Security officers were following her all the time.
As she recalls, she was a master of camouflage. She gave herself new names, invented new professions, dressed up as old women, lolita women, and sportswomen. She had her hiding places all over the country. In 1988, she began to head the Autonomous Eastern Division of Solidarity. A year later, she became involved in the fight against Russian communists. She wanted to have, even symbolic, participation in the collapse of the USSR. Because she knew that as long as the Soviets existed, there could be no free Poland.