GDANSK

We spent the next day in Gdansk, where we met with Solidarity at their headquarters. Lech Walesa was being a recalcitrant at the time (lying low while Thadeus Mazowiecki worked the kinks out of the “transitional” government), and had his closest leaders meet with us in his stead: Jacek Merkel (Senator for Solidarity), Jerzy Kobilynski (Original striker and leader for Solidarity Movement), and Andrej Kozakiewicz (former roofer and political exile to the United States), et al. It was evident from the way the met us, that they were the ones that were actually the power behind the freedom in Poland. They were serious young men. They had been through beatings, killings, exile, starvation, imprisonment, and could smell a lie a mile away. They spoke only in Polish with a simultaneous translator in the room. It was hard to separate the two voices as they spoke over one another. The mood was authoritative and completely momentous. There was urgency mixed with caution. They knew what they had, and what the value of their liberty had cost, and so they protected it from anyone they had not fought side-by-side with – and that included us.

At the ensuing informal lunch, Lech’s driver sat at our table and recounted for us the occasion during Martial Law (when Solidarity had been outlawed): He was driving Pan (Mr.) Walesa through Gdansk and was stopped by the Zomo (secret police: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZOMO ) no less than 10 times in the space of one mile. He proudly produced a picture of the very Zomo who had been harassing them, telling how it had been a criminal offense to take a picture of the Zomo, but the minute the communists were ousted from power, he tracked this guy down and snapped his picture and carried it around as a prized trophy.

Sitting across the table from me, was the interpreter that had been at our meeting with Solidarity. I knew I would be able to talk with him, because he understood English, so I asked him where he had learned English: “Boston, Massachusetts,” he replied. “Oh!” I said, “did you live in America at one time?” “Yes,” he replied. Now he was just being clever: “I lived in America when I was born, up until the time I was a college student in Cambridge.” After I gave him a friendly scolding for his deception, he explained that he first heard about Solidarity when he was studying Russian in Moscow. Solidarity also existed in Russia, so he was in Russia when martial law was declared against Solidarity in Poland. He made his way into Poland then and there, learned Polish (like a native), and became Walesa’s liaison and interpreter from the beginning.

As an American citizen, he was probably politically immune from prosecution from his position as translator, but not persecution. He told us how the Zomo had approached him to spy on Walesa, and threatened him, saying that if he did not do so, they would go to Walesa and tell him that he was a spy, anyway. Of course, Bob did not fall for this, and got beat up a couple of times (which would explain his missing teeth) for not cooperating, but he would not compromise his convictions. The Zomo did not approach Walesa after all because they knew Walesa would never believe anything they told him anyway. In fact, telling Walesa that Bob was working for them, would only convince Walesa to the contrary.