I assumed that the requirement for this kind of memoir-relationship is at least a cursory presentation of the socio-political situation in Poland at that time, inseparably related to further events in the country, including those in “Staszów Land.”
After manipulating the referendum of June 30, 1946 and falsifying the result of the elections to the Legislative Assembly of January 19, 1947, the communist authorities, imposed by the force of Soviet bayonets, settled in Poland, creating for decades the so-called People’s Poland. This creation was completely contrary to national goals and aspirations, and did not fit in with national traditions and character. Wherever the new order could not be established by falsification, intimidation and propaganda, it was introduced by force. This degenerate system had no regard for the national tradition, which had been formed over centuries, or for the rights of national self-determination or economic rights. It aimed at enslaving people, eliminating their subjectivity and depriving everyone of their typical Polish patriotism. This arrogant system, completely controlled from Moscow, enslaved the nation for the needs of a foreign power, ignoring and neglecting the interest of the Polish state and nation. All functioning state organs were pseudo-organs, acting through the imposed communists of Soviet Russia.
Poland was a vassal state, non-sovereign. After gaining power by force, the communists immediately began to systematically destroy the existing opposition. They began fabricated political trials in which heroes were sentenced to death – soldiers of the Home Army who fought during the war against the Nazi occupation and later against the camouflaged Soviet occupation, carried out by the hands of the domestic communists obedient to the Soviets. A similar fate befell some soldiers fighting on the western fronts, returning to their dreamed-of “free” Poland after the war was over. There was a wave of terror against the deeply patriotic part of the society that could not reconcile with another, camouflaged loss of independence, this time to Soviet Russia, achieving its goals with the help of domestic communists. Assassinations, imprisonments, and deportations to Siberia were common methods. These methods were used, among others, against the leaders of the Polish Underground Government active during the Nazi occupation.
In the famous, fabricated trial of “sixteen” in Moscow, 16 leaders of the Underground Polish Government were sentenced to long imprisonment, including Adam Bień, who came from the “Staszów Land.” He wrote down his tragic experiences in the book God Above – Home Away. The arrogance of the Soviet Russia ignoring the International Conventions and impunity of the domestic communists obeying the Soviets resulted in kidnapping the leaders of the Underground Polish Government from the Polish territory. They were subjected to a fake trial in Moscow – outside the borders of the country where they conducted their heroic actions and where they were citizens. The insolence of any action against any law had no limits. Jan Kruzel (my uncle), an inhabitant of Kurozwęki, was sentenced to long-lasting exile to Siberia. Ludwik Machalski, the commander of the armed unit “Mnich” was sentenced to death in the dungeons of the Security Office. Bolesław Walczak, a resident of Staszów, was a political prisoner in the Kielce prison. A young Home Army soldier, Jan Firmanty, a member of the “Mnich” unit, encircled in the unit’s bunker in the Strzegom forests, was shot dead by criminals from the Internal Security Corps (KBW), leaving a young wife and a newborn son. In the arrest of Major Antoni Wiktorowski “Kruk,” whose fate is still unknown, the officers of the Security Office from Staszów took part.
Certainly not all persecuted inhabitants of “Staszów Land” are listed here. Actions of this kind organized by the communists and the Soviet NKWD (National Security Service) throughout Poland were not uncommon. This included total disrespect for working people of all professions and occupations, including the intelligentsia, small businessmen, artisans, and farmers. All the property of the larger entrepreneurs was confiscated and incorporated into the new communist system. In such circumstances, among others, my grandmother Zofia Rutkowska, who owned an iron store in the Staszów town hall, was arrested and her store property was confiscated.
Polish society has never reconciled with the communist regime imposed by force. From the very beginning of the so-called People’s Poland there were still armed bodies defending the independence of the country, which were fought with Soviet help. Total, brutally applied terror resulted in the breakdown of resistance. The applied “amnesty” led to the conviction of those who surrendered and those who wanted to use the weapons. The remainder avoided the fate of their colleagues and comrades-in-arms, emigrating and sharing the fate of the traditional Polish history of exile.
The last bastion of the Roman Catholic Church, which had always been faithful to the nation, was not spared from repression and persecution. The undisputed leader of the Church, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, was arrested. Poland, in which the Church could last, develop and strengthen its position was an exception in the entire communist camp. Under the pressure of the whole society, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was released from solitary confinement after three years. The Church stood by the strength of the nation, and the nation stood by the strength of the Church, forming an unbreakable bond in the common struggle against the hated enemy.
The communist regime, claiming to be the authority of the working class people, disregarding the laws, economic rules and interests of the country, obediently carrying out the orders of the imperialist neighboring power in the name of a dumb communist ideology, brought ruin and misery to the working masses and to the whole economy of the country. The development of the country after Second World War, which the communists boast about, was only in appearance a development and progress. Withholding of U.S. aid under the so-called “Marshall Plan” by the communists on Stalin’s orders resulted in Poland’s backwardness and its economic difficulties in all areas of life, so difficult to overcome today. Today’s war-weary Germany and the war-ravaged countries of Western Europe, which benefited from this plan, are examples of prosperous economies. Today’s Poland, not governed by the ideologically degenerate communist regime, devoid of all scruples, could have been in such a situation. This system aimed at enslaving people, destroying their subjectivity in every area of life and at total subjugation, effective in the case of people with less resilience and national consciousness.
The resentment and most often hatred of the Polish society towards the ruling communist power, neglecting the interests of the state and the nation, triggered feelings aiming at overthrowing the Bolshevik system. In such circumstances it came to defend the interests of Poland and the nation.
The first mass protest of working people against the communists took place in Poznań in 1956. In addition to slogans to improve living conditions, freedom slogans were raised. After a famous speech by the communist Prime Minister Cyrankiewicz, in which he stated that “a hand raised against socialism will be cut off,” the communists used force, killing and wounding dozens of Poznań residents, including even protesting youth.
Science, culture and art were subordinated to communist ideology and the imperial policy of Soviet Russia. All works, works of art and works with national-patriotic overtones were censored. In March 1968, after the censors withheld the staging of Adam Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve), protests took place among academic youth in Poland. Once again, force was used, brutally dispersing street demonstrations. Protest leaders were expelled from universities and sentenced to prison. In December 1970, just before Christmas, the communists imposed drastic price increases on society. In response, there were mass anti-communist protests on the Polish coast. As usual, the communists did not use force. In the streets of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Szczecin and Elblag, 45 people were killed and 1165 were injured. The army, which at that time was subordinate to the Minister of Defense, Wojciech Jaruzelski, was used to fight the protest.
After a change in the Communist leadership and billions in loans from Western countries, the economic situation “improved,” but not for long.
The first signs of the coming economic collapse came in June 1976. The residents of Radom came out onto the streets, burning the building of the PZPR provincial committee – the symbol of communist power – in protest. Further repressions followed. Protesters were arrested en masse, but also people who did not participate in the protest were mistreated using the notorious “health paths.” They consisted of walking between a cordon of militiamen who beat without restraint wherever they could. Groups were fired from their jobs and sentenced to prison. Many families were left without any means of subsistence. After the events in Radom, part of the intelligentsia took the initiative to help the repressed. They formed the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) to meet their needs. The parish priest of one of the Radom parishes, Father Roman Kotlarz, a native of Koniemłoty from the “Staszów Land,” was actively and strongly involved in helping the repressed. He was beaten to death by “unknown assailants” for his active and fearless work despite the repressions. Long years before the bestial murder of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, Father Roman Kotlarz was a martyr for the cause of the workers and the cause of freedom. On each anniversary of the priest’s death, members of KOR and residents of Radom who were repressed at the time visit his grave in Koniemłoty.
In 1978, in Rome, a conclave of cardinals elected Father Karol Wojtyła, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Cracow, to the Holy See. The election of the “Polish Pope” became a fact of immense significance for Poland and Poles all over the world. Finally someone with such a great, global moral authority could speak on behalf of a nation trapped in communism. John Paul II’s visit to his homeland in 1979 and his loud plea for the rights of the people released the nation’s new hope for a change of fortune.
In 1980, the country suffered a complete economic collapse, burdened with an ever-increasing, difficult-to-pay debt, as well as a contribution to the Summer Olympics that were taking place in Moscow. All over Poland there was a lack of basic necessities of life. Endless queues in front of stores for elementary goods, especially food, became a part of society’s life, an image of misery and poverty. The communists took the well-known precaution of raising the prices of basic products in order to shift the costs of dealing with the crisis, which was not the nation’s fault, onto the nation’s shoulders. It was under such circumstances that the next struggle of the nation for its rights began. The events that had begun in the summer of 1980 with the strikes in Lublin were coming to pass, and they transformed again into mass strikes on the Polish coast.