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Foretelling of the events of March 1968

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Story of my diary
Jan Józef Lipski Social activist
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While organising protests against the disciplinary hearings of those students who'd been quite vocal after the lecture given by Kołakowski, and while collecting signatures in support of this protest, I again ended up with 48 hours, which was still uncommon at that time, at the Ministry of the Interior where they put me up, twice. This was associated with a big shock in my life, meaning that I very carelessly kept a diary. The carelessness lay in the fact that I kept a diary at all but precautions meant that no one came across this diary, this diary was never found. To be honest, even if I'd been very carefully watched there was no chance of discovering where I'd send material every few days to a hiding place where these things were kept for me. As a result, I was a little alarmed by a large part of that diary which I thought it would be better if no one read, so I said it should be destroyed, and this is one of the heaviest blows I've had in life. It's enough if I just say that I'd kept that diary since '53, from the day that Mr Różański had appeared as the boss of PIW [Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy (National Institute of Publishing)] in '53. So as you can see, for a good few years I kept this diary and it was very detailed. I didn't include my personal reflections or spiritual experiences. It was an account of what was happening. It's enough if I say that it was so thorough, that one six-month period filled a 300-page volume. And most of this was destroyed at my request. Fortunately, not everything so something might one day be published, but it was a huge shock for me. Among other things because the finding of a few pages which I happened to have with me created problems for people about whom I'd written there, and paralysed one of the works associated with the student disciplinary hearings. This was a bit... it was very upsetting for me.

Organizując protest przeciwko dyscyplinarkom wytaczanym studentom, którzy zabierali głos dosyć czasami ostro po odczycie Kołakowskiego i zbierając podpisy pod protestem, trafiłem znowu na 48 godzin, co wtedy jeszcze było rzadkie do Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnętrznych, gdzie mnie znowu przenocowano przez... dwukrotnie. I to się...i to się wiązało z dużym wstrząsem w moim życiu polegającym na tym, że ja bardzo nieostrożnie...prowadziłem dziennik. To znaczy nieostrożność polega w ogóle na fakcie prowadzenia dziennika. Ostrożność polegała na tym, że tego dziennika, nigdy na nie...nie trafiono i nie znaleziono tego dziennika. I prawdę mówiąc, nawet nie było szans przy bardzo dokładnym inwigilowaniu mnie, żeby trafić, gdzie ja co parę dni przesyłałem do nich, do schowka, gdzie mi chowano te rzeczy. Ale w rezultacie tego ja trochę przestraszony znaczną część tego dziennika, którą uważałem, że lepiej żeby tej części nikt nie czytał, kazałem zniszczyć, co jest dla mnie jeden z większych ciosów życiowych, wystarczy powiedzieć, że prowadziłem to od roku '53, właśnie od dnia zjawienia się pana Różańskiego jako dyrektora PIW-u, od '53. Czyli – jak widać – kilkanaście lat, a prowadziłem to tak dokładnie, to nie były refleksje osobiste ani przeżycia duszy, to były relacje o tym, co się dzieje. Wystarczy powiedzieć, że prowadziłem go z taką dokładnością, że jedno półrocze to jest około trzystustronicowy tom. I większość tego została zniszczona na moje żądanie. Nie wszystko na szczęście, jeszcze coś kiedyś będzie można opublikować, ale to był wielki wstrząs dla mnie. Między innymi dlatego, że znalezienie parę...paru kartek przy mnie właśnie, które miałem, spowodowało pewne kłopoty dla ludzi, o których tam pisałem i sparaliżowało jedną z robót związanych z dyscyplinarkami studenckimi. Trochę to... bardzo przykra sprawa dla mnie była.

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: Jacek Petrycki Marcel Łoziński

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.

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.

Tags: Ministry of the Interior, National Institute of Publishing, Leszek Kołakowski, Józef Różański

Duration: 2 minutes, 30 seconds

Date story recorded: October 1989

Date story went live: 10 March 2011