Interviews with Zbigniew and Zofia Romaszewski

ZOFIA ROMASZEWSKA: Well my biography is not all that complicated. I was born in Warsaw, a very long time ago [1940]. My interests are in the population, interest in people in general, their history and their living conditions, I primarily inherited this from my birth home, simply put. A home in which there was always this interest. My mom was in the Home Army [an underground resistance movement organized against the Nazi occupation of Poland], so was my dad, and therefore – my grandparents also fought for our country, for its improvement – and therefore such traditions were just always present in our home.

ZBIGNIEW ROMASZEWSKI: Well, in my case there may be a greater abundance, so to speak, because everything seems to begin and end with the Warsaw Uprising [The Warsaw Uprising was an unsuccessful but heroic military campaign in 1944 by the Polish Home Army during World War II against Nazi occupation forces.]. What I mean is that my family, to a large extent, ceased to exist at that time. My father was murdered in Sachsenhausen [Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany], my grandmother was murdered at Ravensbruck [Nazi concentration camp for women and children in Ravensbruk, Germany]. And of the entire family only myself and one aunt survived [and his mother].

I myself also spent time at a German camp – this was Ravensbruck – and later in a labor camp. And it was only [General] George Patton´s army which liberated me in Germany [George Patton was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army, and later the Third United States Army, in Europe during World War II].

And in this way I was practically raised by two women – my mother stood in for my father, my aunt stood in for my mother, and in this way I entered into the years of Stalinism [referring to the totalitarian rule of Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from 1922-1952]. And really from the very outset, I knew lots and lots of things which I should not have known about. [02:38:05] I knew about the Katyn Forest massacre [a mass execution of Polish nationals carried out by the People´s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (the Soviet secret police) in1940], I knew about the arrests that took place among Polish intelligentsia when the communist system was being introduced – all this information cycled through our home.

This was a very difficult time, and I must give credit to my mom, who had lots of toughness. My mother was an accountant and she worked at the Internal Audits [department] of the National Bank of Poland. And at a juncture when she was ordered to snoop in the desk drawers of her colleagues, she told them: “no,” she would do no such thing. And that was the point at which they threw her out to work at the postal desk, where she would stamp incoming mail. She sat at that desk until 1956, and after that she went back to a regular banking position.

So this kind of atmosphere was why I wanted to have something stable in my life, and so at the University [of Warsaw] I decided to study physics.

I always had an interest in the law, but after all those abuses of the law under the Stalinist system and all the related unpleasantness, the law was really not something to think about, rather something to run away from and go for something more verifiable, so to speak – so I became a physicist. I got my doctorate.

But, nevertheless, throughout that time in our home – not even in our home, but in general, we had interests of a political nature, of a social nature. I met my wife in the year 1957, that January, probably the 7th or 8th – this was during the winter recess. We met at an event which was organized by the first free – well, almost free – newspaper called Po Prostu [Straight Out] – it organized a youth conference which they called a “Revolutionary Youth Congress”.

Oh, we were revolutionary youth, all right – both my wife and myself – because as it happened in our respective schools we had disbanded the cells of the [Communist] Polish Union of Youth (ZMP). And somehow things have stayed in that fashion, and ever since then we have stuck with each other and gone through life together.

Zbigniew Romaszewski and his wife, Zofia Romaszewska, were born in 1940 in Warsaw, Poland. Growing up during World War II and the Soviet Union’s subjugation of Eastern Europe, the couple became opponents of Poland’s communist regime and activists in various democratic opposition movements.

As children, Zbigniew and Zofia witnessed the horrors of World War II. Zbigniew and his family were sent to concentration camps, where his father died. After the war, he was raised by his mother and aunt. Zofia’s parents were part of Poland’s Home Army, an underground resistance movement against the Nazi occupation.

Zbigniew and Zofia both studied physics at the University of Warsaw. In the 1970s, following protests over rising prices by workers in the cities of Radom and Ursus, they helped to create the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR), an organization that provided monetary and material support to persecuted laborers and their families. In addition, KOR documented human rights violations committed by the regime. Zbigniew also served as a principal editor for the Madrid Report, a detailed account of human rights violations in Poland that was released during the 1980 review meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (then known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe).

In 1980, worker strikes at Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard led to the formation of Solidarity, the first independent labor union in the communist world. The movement inspired millions within Poland and transformed into a nationwide freedom movement. Zbigniew and Zofia joined Solidarity and became active members. In December 1981, the government declared martial law in an effort to crackdown on political opposition. During this time the Romaszewskis went into hiding and established Radio Solidarity, an underground radio station that broadcast independent news and information to Polish citizens until the communist regime fell.

In communism’s final days, Zbigniew was elected to the Senate as an independent candidate in the semi-free elections of 1989. The next year, Lech Walesa was elected as the country’s first post-communist president and the first fully free parliamentary elections were held in 1991. Zbigniew served in the Polish Senate through much of the following two decades, including as the deputy speaker from 2007 – 2011.

Zbigniew Romaszewski passed away on February 13, 2014.

Poland is a central European country bordered by the Baltic Sea, Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Russia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Poland has a population of 38 million people; nearly 90 percent are Roman Catholic.

Poles struggled against foreign dominance from the 14th century and the modern Polish state is less than one hundred years old. Polish borders expanded and contracted through a series of partitions in the 18th century. After a brief period of independence and parliamentary democracy from 1918 to 1939, World War II brought occupation by Nazi Germany and the near annihilation of the Jewish population. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Poland’s Jewish population went from over 3 million in 1933 to 45,000 in 1950.

After the war, Poland became a Soviet satellite state and a communist system was imposed. Farms were collectivized, basic freedoms curtailed, and a culture of fear developed under a Stalinist regime. The 1960s brought greater prosperity and some liberalization. Labor protests in the early 1970s tested the communist government’s resolve and prompted modest reforms.

In 1978, Polish Archbishop and Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian to hold the position since the 16th century. The pope’s triumphant return to Poland in 1979 saw massive outpourings of public support, shaking the foundations of the government and inspiring the opposition to press for peaceful change.

In 1980, shipbuilders in the seaport city of Gdansk united to confront the government. Their calls for greater political liberties and improved working conditions developed into the Solidarity movement. Solidarity’s leader, Lech Walesa, became the movement’s voice. Protests and unrest spread throughout the country and the communists replaced their leadership. General Wojciech Jaruzelski became prime minister and declared martial law on December 13, 1981. Solidarity was outlawed and Walesa and other Solidarity leaders were imprisoned.

While martial law was lifted in 1983, Poland continued to stagnate. Mikhail Gorbachev’s elevation to leadership of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 brought new pressures for reform in Poland. A failing economy and continued repression incited workers to a new wave of strikes in 1988. A desperate regime agreed to legalize Solidarity and conduct semi-free elections. In the 1989 parliamentary elections, Solidarity won 99 of the 100 Senate seats and 160 of the 161 lower house seats they were allowed to contest. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a Solidarity leader, became Poland’s first non-communist prime minister in over four decades. In 1990, Lech Walesa was elected president with 74 percent of the vote. While Solidarity splintered as Poland democratized, a coalition government of anti-communist parties won fully free parliamentary elections in 1991.

Poland transitioned to a market economy and applied for integration into western institutions. Economic dislocation returned the former communists, now social democrats, to power in 1993. Free elections and peaceful transitions in the following decades solidified Poland’s multi-party democratic system. Reforms eventually led to a more robust economy and Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.

In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2013, Poland earned the status “Free,” (as it has since 1990) receiving the best possible rankings in the categories Political Rights and Civil Liberties.