The Birth of Poland’s Free Trade Union Solidarity

Listen on Apple Podcass Listen on Spotify Listen on YouTube Listen on Amazon Music Listen on Overcast Listen on Pocket Casts Listen on Podcast Addict Become a Patron!

One morning in August 1980, the noise of 10,000 shipyard workers suddenly stopped. Something extraordinary was happening.

As a young shipbuilding student, Bogdan Marzewski finds himself inside Gdańsk’s Lenin Shipyard as workers put down tools and the movement that will become Solidarity begins to take shape. What follows is a remarkable journey through Poland’s final decade of communism.

Bogdan recalls student occupation strikes, the shock of martial law, encounters with riot police, and his unconventional escape from military conscription by becoming a teacher. He describes his first intoxicating glimpse of the West in Vienna and West Berlin, where two worlds exist just metres apart across the Berlin Wall.

Then, in the summer of 1989, Bogdan and his wife board a flight for Canada with borrowed money, a few possessions and no certainty about what comes next.

This is a deeply personal story of resistance, freedom and starting again.

Buy the book and support the podcast here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://amzn.to/4y3dlLC⁠

Bogdan’s website & other book purchase options https://www.bogdanmarzewski.com/book

Bogdan in grade 6 - a school trip to Kolobrzeg a city known from WWII for German resistance as the eastern front was moving towards Berlin.

Bogdan in Gr 8 showing him carrying the school flag when they were made to march in front of the city officials on May 1st- the Labour Day

Bogdan digging some trenches near Leipzig in 79 while working summer job in former GDR

Bogdan and friend from another summer job site in 85, East Germany near Rostock town

A wall of the Shipyard in Gdansk in August of 1980 taken by one of the students who happened to have a camera

Holding a guitar while sailing on Mazury Lakes in 1982 with friends from the shipbuilding program.

Bogdan and his wife sitting next to Polish actor Artur Barcis. Warsaw, summer 86.

1989 The first moment in Montreal after Bogdan and his wife cleared the customs office and were about to be picked up to go to Toronto.

⁠

The fight to preserve Cold War history continues, and with a simple monthly donation, you will give me the ammunition to keep it alive. You’ll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank-you, and bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history.

Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/

If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, We also welcome one-off donations via the same link