Mr. Tusk - Rejtan in European Union

In 1773, a special session of the Sejm (Polish parliament) was convened in Warsaw, by its three neighbours (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria) in order to legalize their First Partition of Poland. That Sejm is known as the Partition Sejm. Rejtan was one of the deputies that tried to prevent the first partition of Poland. He was a deputy to that Sejm, and had explicit instructions from his constituency to defend the Commonwealth. His arguments and protest did not bring results. When there was nothing more to be done to protect Poland from partitioning he made a dramatic gesture of baring his chest, blocking the exit with his own body in a dramatic attempt to stop the other members from leaving the chamber and ending the discussion, leaving Poland to be partitioned.

This image of the famous Polish painting came to mind when I heard from my Australian friend about Mr. Tusk’s action at the end of the Sunday night last chance meeting to solve Greece problems and prevent it from leaving the Eurozone. When Angela Merkel and Andreas Tsipras tried to leave the room breaking up the negotiations Mr. Tusk stepped forward saying : “Sorry but there is no way you are going to leave this room”. Just like Rejtan only he was better controlling his emotions. Times are different.  They stayed and reached agreement, Greece is still in Eurozone.

                                           

I also hope that Mr. Tusk’s action will be successful in the future and that Greece staying in the Union will really make sense. While my way of writing about the situation may seem flippant, this is not how it is intended. Mr. Tusk has been my hero for some time and for the sake of me believing in heroes at all, I hope he continues to be an honest, dedicated and clever world politician. I am sorry that in Poland he has been an antihero for some time now.  

As my ability to write political assessment of the Greek situation is very limited I would recommend Jim Belshaw's analysis. 

Day 2 of sightseeing in the Tricity

After the Old Town in Gdansk it was a time show my Aussie friend recent history of the town. I heard of a new museum Roads to Freedom and that it was a must to see. For some reason I had not seen it before. I was not even sure how to get there even if I knew that is was not far away from the shipyard. I must have passed it in my walks to the green market or the Old Town but somehow never saw an entrance to the museum. In my role of a tourist guide, which I played not all that brilliantly, I was supposed to know how to get there without any  hiccups. So I checked the situation in internet. I knew the street but why didn’t I see the entrance when passing the place? When we were near the museum I understood.  Not a salubrious entrance but communistic times were not salubrious times and this is what the museum shows. The museum is going to move in the near future to the still being build European Solidarity Center. I pass this impressive building often and it grows fast. Next time I come to Gdansk it will be most likely ready. I cannot wait.

But back to The Roads to Freedom. We walked down the stairs leading old shabby environment showing us how it was before Poland re-gained its freedom. We bought our tickets looking like old fashion cards from the time of martial law in 1981-83.  I believe that the ration cards were used for longer than this period. The first exhibits show typical Polish shop of the times. Not much there, vinegar and mustard were on the shelves, other things may have been available for the chosen ones but they were under the counter rather than displayed.

This is how the typical shop looked like. The men on the left just managed to buy toilet paper and this was the way to carry an unexpected purchase.

                                  

The museum covers the modern history of Poland, the events I was not aware of even if I lived in Poland in the 70ties.  I was in Gdansk in January 1971 learning about programming in Cobol and PLAN, the ICL assembly language. Memories, memories... That aside, December 1970 was a tragic time for Gdansk and its shipyard workers who protested against sudden increase of food and other everyday items. As the result of riots which were brutally put down 42 people were killed and over 1,000 wounded.

The events were not covered by news, they were the times the government could hide such things. Not to people of Gdansk, of course, they were involved themselves and saw things happening. My Polish neighbour, who worked at the time in a pharmacy, remembers the panic and how she was helping to sterilise surgical instruments in a great hurry. One month later nobody wanted to talk to me, a girl from Warsaw, about what happened. It was not safe to talk. I knew that something horrible did happen but it was only when visiting the museum I put the pieces of the puzzle together. If you are surprised at my ignorance I left Poland in 1976 and now I am catching up with my Polish history knowledge.

The museum has a multimedia tour covering events from 1956 to 1989. I would recommend using the audio tour and sit for a while at the computers reading the stories of the times. It is all both in English and Polish. And very inexpensive.

I like one of the last exhibits, domino of abolishing communism, with Poland starting the chain of changes.

                                        

I got carried away writing more than planned so the second part of the sightseeing day 2 – lunch in Polish style will be a subject of my next post.