Ceremonies commemorating the events of August ’80 were held in Bolesławiec beneath the Solidarity monument near the PKP railway station. At the beginning of the ceremony, Jan Filipek, an activist with Bolesławiec Solidarity, spoke. He said that the policies of Donald Tusk’s government bore the hallmarks of treason. He also expressed xenophobic views.
– Today we want to look at the path Europe and our country are taking. We look with great pain and concern at the current government’s policies. December 13, a special date. On December 13, in the interests of Poland’s age-old enemies: the mass relocation of immigrants and cultures foreign and hostile to our culture on the one hand, and the pedagogy of shame, the media and the degradation of Polish youth on the other. We recently had the opportunity to watch it on television. This is the education of young people. May God protect us from it. It will eliminate the sense of national identity – said Jan Filipek.
– The Association of Anti-Communist Activists and Repressed Persons, participants in the struggle for independence who spared no effort, sacrifice or life, fighting communism during the Solidarity era, are convinced that the coalition government’s policies bear the hallmarks of treason. It is the duty of our generation to take all lawful measures, as we did 44 years ago, aimed at blocking the current government’s further actions. We do not want to go down in history as the generation that disgraced itself by losing a free Poland and the independent Polish state – Jan Filipek added.
Bolesławiec County Head Tomasz Gabrysiak gave a completely different speech. He said that we live in a free country and sometimes do not appreciate that.
– We may differ, because we do differ, but this does not carry any far-reaching consequences. No one will kill us; no one will put us in prison without a sentence. No one will plot against our lives and health; no one will enslave our families. Despite having lived in a free state for more than 30 years, I think we do not fully appreciate this fact. That we live in a free part of Europe, in a free Poland. And we should remember that being free and having our own views could have ended in death or a lengthy prison sentence – said Tomasz Gabrysiak, head of Bolesławiec County.
Jan Filipek, as we read on Wikipedia, led a strike during the events of August 1980 and later participated in the work of the Temporary Inter-Factory Founding Committee in Bolesławiec. In May 1981, he became chairman of the Inter-Factory Committee of the NSZZ Solidarity trade union in Bolesławiec. He was a delegate to the First National Congress of Delegates in Gdańsk, where he participated in the work of the Labour and Social Rights Committee. During martial law, he was arrested on December 19, 1981, and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released from prison on April 30, 1983, as part of an amnesty