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Communist ploy for eliminating political rivals

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Fraudulent strategies for shrinking the electorate
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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During the elections to the Sejm, things were even more... they were made interesting in a different way. Namely, I don't know what legal bill it was, how important it was, but it was decided that if the electoral committee received information about someone, and most often the basic point that was used was that they had co-operated with the occupying forces, information which didn't necessarily have any consequences, there was no investigation or anything like that. It had... it was an idea... it was very short-term, it was meant to reduce the number of people who were going to vote in the wrong way. It turned out that my father had been removed from the electoral register as a result of this kind of information, but I knew very well that during the occupation, my father had put himself at risk, had fought to have the clandestine classes, had organised them, and how... since the vocational school was not a secret institution, the official contact with the Germans created additional hazards and dangers. So you could say that my father was constantly walking a tightrope. Any trouble in the school, the arrest of a pupil, which happened more than once, could have ended with him being sent to a concentration camp. And for all of these things my father was being accused by some anonymous person of co-operating with the occupying force. Today, he wouldn't have been bothered if he was prevented from going to the ballot box – if he can't, he can't. But then, I found the circumstances shocking, and they had a very big effect on my attitude to all of these issues.

Natomiast w czasie wyborów do Sejmu rzeczy wyglądały... jeszcze w dodatku miały swoje dodatkowe takie jakieś uroki. Mianowicie, nie wiem jaki to był akt prawny, jakiego rzędu, ale było takie postanowienie, że jeżeli na kogoś wpłynęło do komisji wyborczej takie doniesienie, z których jednym z punktów zasadniczych takich najczęściej używanych było to, że współpraca z okupantem... To doniesienie zresztą nie musiało potem powodować jakichkolwiek następstw, że jakieś śledztwo się zaczynało toczyć, żeby coś. To miało, taki pomysł był na... zupełnie doraźny, żeby zmniejszyć ilość ludzi, którzy będą głosowali nie tak jak trzeba. No i kiedy okazało się, że mój ojciec został skreślony z listy wyborczej na skutek takiego doniesienia, a ja dobrze wiedziałem jak mój ojciec w czasie okupacji, jak się narażał, jak walczył na odcinku tego tajnego szkolnictwa, organizowania tajnego szkolnictwa, jak... ponieważ taka szkoła zawodowa była instytucją jawną, to ten styk z Niemcami oficjalny stwarzał dodatkowe zagrożenia i niebezpieczeństwa. Tak że ojciec, tak można powiedzieć, odbywał coś w rodzaju nieustannego „tańca na linie”. Każda jakiegoś wpadka w szkole, jakieś aresztowanie ucznia, a to się zdarzało przecież niejednokrotnie, mogła się skończyć obozem koncentracyjnym. I ojciec za to wszystko zostaje przez jakiegoś anonima oskarżony o współpracę z okupantem i dzisiaj bym się tym nie przejął, że nie może iść do urny, no nie może, to nie może. Ale okoliczności tego były jednak dla mnie wtedy wstrząsające i też bardzo dużą rolę odegrały do mojego stosunku do tych wszystkich spraw.

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was one of Poland's best known political activists. He was also a writer and a literary critic. As a soldier in the Home Army (Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1976, following worker protests, he co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). His active opposition to Poland's communist authorities led to his arrest and imprisonment on several occasions. In 1987, he re-established and headed the Polish Socialist Party. Two years later, he was elected to the Polish Senate. He died in 1991 while still in office. For his significant work, Lipski was honoured with the Cross of the Valorous (Krzyż Walecznych), posthumously with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1991) and with the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle (2006).

Listeners: Marcel Łoziński Jacek Petrycki

Film director Marcel Łoziński was born in Paris in 1940. He graduated from the Film Directing Department of the National School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź in 1971. In 1994, he was nominated for an American Academy Award and a European Film Academy Award for the documentary, 89 mm from Europe. Since 1995, he has been a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Science awarding Oscars. He lectured at the FEMIS film school and the School of Polish Culture of Warsaw University. He ran documentary film workshops in Marseilles. Marcel Łoziński currently lectures at Andrzej Wajda’s Master School for Film Directors. He also runs the Dragon Forum, a European documentary film workshop.

Cinematographer Jacek Petrycki was born in Poznań, Poland in 1948. He has worked extensively in Poland and throughout the world. His credits include, for Agniezka Holland, Provincial Actors (1979), Europe, Europe (1990), Shot in the Heart (2001) and Julie Walking Home (2002), for Krysztof Kieslowski numerous short films including Camera Buff (1980) and No End (1985). Other credits include Journey to the Sun (1998), directed by Jesim Ustaoglu, which won the Golden Camera 300 award at the International Film Camera Festival, Shooters (2000) and The Valley (1999), both directed by Dan Reed, Unforgiving (1993) and Betrayed (1995) by Clive Gordon both of which won the BAFTA for best factual photography. Jacek Petrycki is also a teacher and a filmmaker.

Tags: parliamentary elections, collaboration, risk, danger, anonymous accusation

Duration: 2 minutes, 5 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 09 March 2011