MEETING WITH SOLIDARITY

At first it was really difficult to understand these Solidarity representatives’ English through their thick accents. Plus, we were still very tired. They were all dressed in shades of grey or brown slacks with sweaters over their shirts (Warsaw is about as humid as Los Angeles, so it feels colder than it actually is). Very few of them were wearing ties. I remember on a later excursion into Warsaw, going with Kuba (Jakub Zaborowski’s nick-name) to buy a tie. The beautiful silk ties with beautiful geometric patterns, or jungle scenes, etc. all came with instructions on how to tie them. Common workers, or archeologists like Kuba, had never owned a tie in their life let alone know how to tie them. Since I had 5 boys, I was glad to help. Kuba did own a suit, however, because he was married to a former Polish aristocrat’s daughter (Hannah or Hania), and he had borrowed his father-in-law’s suit (which had probably been around since before WWII). Kuba told me how he had learned to buy shoes 1 or 2 sizes too big so that he could walk great distances without hurting his feet on the very hard cobblestone streets and sidewalks. He never learned to drive because he would never be able to own a car as long as the communists were in power. This was partly due to the lack of cars available for purchase, and mostly due to the fact that he was a Solidarity leader who was black-balled like all others like him.

Eventually it occurred to me that Poles loved nick-names. “Kuba” for Jakub, “Jan” for Janick, “Hania” for Hannah, “Bashia” for Barbara, and “Kate” for Katherine. So, in spite of my best efforts to appear sophisticated and business-like, I was nick-named “Kate of America,” or just “Kate”. I liked the nickname, because it meant I belonged amongst the men and women of Solidarity and Poland – and I truly felt at home in this country.

As we sat in the large hall where we were listening to the business plans the Chamber of Commerce had constructed, Jan, or Dr. Stickiewicz (President of the National Chamber of Commerce) took out a Zloty and blew his nose! This was the best indication of how worthless Polish money was for the next few months after the collapse of communism.

Jan became a good friend, but gradually became very sick as the months went by. I’m not sure how he got sick, but I later learned about the common practice of “radiating” residences of Solidarity leadership by the communists in order to make them sick enough to go away, if not die. Jan had a tumor-looking growth on his forehead, and it got bigger every time I saw him, which was only saw him three more times after this initial meeting.

We spent the rest of the day with these Solidarity heroes who had extinguished communism, founded a new country, and brought down the Berlin Wall – yet here was an example of the kind of hero we met over and over again: the ordinary person who had the courage to do what he knew was right and align with the truth in all things. Courage was the word that applied, and the attribute that won freedom for Poland and all of Eastern Europe. From courage came confidence. Both were traits that I lacked in myself, and would need to develop in order to accomplish the things in my life that I needed to do.