With embarrassment and distaste, I receive the contents of the letter from the Head of the Information Team of the BBN in Warsaw, Mr Arkadiusz Urban. I understand it as encouragement to a “war at the grassroots” modelled on the one being waged at the highest levels of power in the Third Republic of Poland. I must disappoint my adversary: we are a free press, independent of any political pressure; we seek to integrate, not divide, the local community and local-government community, and our ambition is to reliably inform Readers about what is important and interesting in the town and surrounding area. We steer clear of “high politics”, leaving that field to experts and professionals—not because we lack knowledge, our own views or feelings in this area, or because we constitute “some sort of ignorant backwater from the deep provinces” (a quotation from the statement by the head of Polish diplomacy in Israel). We simply have too many important local problems to resolve, valuing the ethos of work above futile disputes, barbs or ideological indoctrination, which is being served to ordinary people ever more generously, if only on the occasion of the upcoming presidential election. We have a different, independent way of ranking the importance of the problems of Bolesławiec, the municipality bearing the town’s name and the future county, and we do not intend to change this approach to substantive issues in our editorial work.
You personally met the Author of the anonymous (?) letter about the NSZ; I spoke about the right to freedom of speech and personal views—also expressed publicly, as in the entire free and democratic world—and you did not question that. Although this “confusion” surrounding the imprecise information did not arise at my initiative, I do not evade responsibility and apologise for the false information about Minister Henryk Goryszewski’s stay in Jelenia Góra. However, I cannot simply overlook the entire propaganda surrounding the rest of the argument, because in this respect I am entitled to different feelings. The Minister sent the participants of the anniversary meeting of the Association of NSZ Soldiers in Jelenia Góra a letter in which he wrote, among other things (I quote from “Słowo Polskie”): “Today, after decades, they also have another satisfaction, because it is they whom history has proved right.” And I still stubbornly maintain that history proved right the conquerors of Berlin (my father died there) and all those who defeated German fascism and who recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War—also in Bolesławiec. As for other details concerning the NSZ, let the Author of the letter debate them with you; among other things, he gave me for review an extensive photocopy of the operative part of a judgment by the Provincial Court in Kielce, illustrating the period of fratricidal civil war in Poland. No, our national history was not black and white, and it takes a great deal of cheek—or even ill will—to distribute blows unambiguously and pass judgments and verdicts today in the presence of a generation that witnessed and participated in years of tragic experiences. I shy away from the role of Rejtan, although I would have the right to cry out loudly—more so than a generation educated in the People’s Republic of Poland, which you despise.
And here again we differ in our views. I do not know which of us is practising “propaganda from the bygone period of the People’s Republic of Poland”, or, as you put it literarily, “from the bygone period of totalitarianism straight out of Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.” In return, I will use an intrinsically Polish example: we live in a world borrowed from the vision of “The Career of Nikodem Dyzma”, drawing not only on those associations but even on the language of the fallen protagonist. Let us, however, spare ourselves these barbs and look at the objective realities.
I pay homage to the beautiful credo of the Polish diaspora in Germany, which at its congress in Berlin in 1938—during Hitler’s genuine totalitarianism—published the “Five Truths of the Poles”, including the eminently apt thought: “Poland is our mother; one must not speak ill of our mother.” I worked for Poland all my life, and the adjective “People’s” did not matter here. I did not feel enslaved, because I wanted to be free and studied at tuition-free universities (you received your education in luxurious conditions, while I had to work professionally at the same time); later, I also educated two sons, and my wife’s and my modest teachers’ salaries were enough for that. Today I would have the right to shout that the Third Republic of Poland proved a stepmother to me, because it took away 40 percent of the pension I had earned after 38 years of honest work—something for which the then Minister Jacek Kuroń and the President of the Republic of Poland, who eagerly signed the bill passed by the previous Sejm, bear personal responsibility. In a democratic state governed by the rule of law, the law was applied retroactively. Despite feeling personally wronged, I do not curse, protest, go underground or join the opposition, incite or inflame. This is, after all, my Poland, my homeland, my nation and my state. I want to serve it until the end of my days and work—as I have throughout my long life. But I must not be insulted for having worked in the People’s Republic of Poland all my life—I have nothing to reproach myself for; on the contrary, I know how to weigh fairly the entire range of good aspects of that time. Have you listened to the voice—or perhaps the cry of despair—of today’s 9 million pensioners, who count and turn over in their hardworking hands every grosz spent on bread? Do you hear the curses of 3 million unemployed people and their families, who have to rely on humiliating charitable benefits? Have you seen the homeless at the railway station in Bolesławiec—not to mention Warsaw? People rummaging through rubbish bins, beggars in the streets? So perhaps we should speak more quietly and with greater prudence about the past, which will not return. The present remains an open and painful problem; that is why we write about it and want to shape, change and improve it on the local scale. And it does not matter that I may have been the first unemployed person in Bolesławiec when I was ordered to change schools—my place of work. It was not the system but a specific person who was at fault and made the decision. It is similar today. “Evil is born in human minds,” says the Polish Pope. That is an objective truth.
For lack of space, I will not prolong the debate. I do not accept responsibility, allegedly falling on TMB and local authorities, for “misleading the broader public”, and I am prepared to defend the good name of these institutions. Such wording merely proves the arrogance of power—following the worst patterns of the bygone period and the conviction that there is “only one correct truth” (we know that one, we do...). It is not for you to assess the activity of the local community; this is done by councillors elected through a democratic procedure and by the residents of Bolesławiec themselves. The best vote of confidence is the discharge granted to the City Board. You should know that the times when councillors had nothing to say have passed irretrievably: today they constitute an authentic and autonomous authority, resistant to pressure and the schemes of politicians of all kinds. At least that is how it is in Bolesławiec. Our consensus in acting pro publico bono cannot be questioned, I can assure you of that. The same applies to the good name and authority of the entire Municipal or Rural Council. We know how to cooperate, differ gracefully, accept substantively justified arguments, draw sound conclusions and serve the local community. We do not kneel before the great men of this world: we govern ourselves in our own home, in our own little homeland.
And “Głos Bolesławca” will always have room for controversial opinions and Readers’ letters, even if their authors hold views different from those of “the authorities” at various levels. In accordance with the principles of democracy, freedom of speech and pluralism.
Yours sincerely
Paweł Śliwko
Editor-in-Chief
P.S.
At the BBN’s request, I am publishing the full text of the letter; I hope it is in “legible print” (!). Incidentally, in my life I have received a few letters from great statesmen, including Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, and Kurt Waldheim, Secretary-General of the UN. Always in a white, elegant envelope, addressed directly to me. This time the document reached me through third parties, in the form of a duplicator copy. Well—you can do it that way too. O tempora, o mores... I am not demanding an apology.