After the political transformation in 1989, that is, the expulsion of the Soviet occupier, a bright future opened up for the Polish nation. New companies began to emerge, people started trading in national assets, selling off whatever could be sold, for whatever price and to whomever.
At the same time, denigration of the past began, including of the generation of Poles from post-war Poland. No one then or now seems to consider that we are dealing with people exhausted by years of war and Nazi occupation, years of oppression under the Soviet boot. People who, despite this, rebuilt the country in difficult conditions, going hungry and living in poverty. People tormented by despair after losing loved ones and those swallowed up by the Soviet occupier, as well as desperate, uncertain about tomorrow, displaced persons from the Eastern Borderlands or former Yugoslavia.
Homo komunistus, or the enemy of Poland and the “new” Poles
Despite Soviet oppression, today’s pensioners created and developed Polish industry as much as they could. They caused it to flourish and become competitive worldwide. After 1989, the new authorities set about dismantling the achievements of those years.
Propaganda successfully convinced young people that all of this had to be destroyed because it was impractical—that is the great simplification. What was useful for more effective indoctrination was taken from the ethos of the Polish people, while the rest was thrown onto the rubbish heap of history, along with the people.
And so “homo komunistus” was created—the enemy of Poland and the “new” Poles. Crude and ruthless propaganda stigmatized defenseless pensioners dependent on pension and disability benefits from the Polish state. Instead of showing them respect and thanking them, they were met with insults and accusations of collaboration and betrayal.
Hounded by the nation’s new saviors, some joined their new persecutors for the safety of themselves and their families, because it was safer to side with those in power than to fight them for their dignity. Pensioners who did not accept this mistreatment joined groups where they simply felt safer. To this day, the division that benefits those in power remains. An example is the influential activists of the former party operating in today’s right-wing parties.
The Humiliation of the Polish Pensioner
The Polish pensioner is humiliated in every way possible. Partly to amuse the masses, they were stripped of the pensions they had earned, and partly their pensions were reduced. No one shared anything—not even through increases or decent pensions—with the actual owners of the assets left after the Polish People’s Republic.
The “new good people” seized and appropriated everything for themselves, while those who created the national wealth continue to receive handouts, supposedly so that things remain somewhat humane—but they are not humane. It is brazen, arrogant and inhuman. A disgrace before the world. Many have given up and still apologize; they are old and powerless.
Propaganda continues to torment them, turning young people against them and showing no respect for their feelings. These people have been through a great deal and cope as best they can, yet money is still extracted from them for alleged purposes intended to save the country. Their state persecutors will not let them live out their days with a sense of peace, duty well fulfilled and the tranquility they have long deserved.
As if receiving miserable financial support were not enough, their ability to earn additional income is also restricted, and thresholds are calculated whose excess threatens to deprive them of their already meager benefits. They are accused of wanting to deprive young people of jobs, while foreigners are brought in because of a lack of workers. I call this contemptuous approach the “other” extermination of older Poles. This is how authorities invoking religious traditions, mainly Catholic ones, behave. An immeasurable degree of hypocrisy and sophistication.
Interest in pensioners in Poland exists only during elections
In their inglorious post-war history, Germany, despite having actual criminals among its own citizens, shows them more respect than Polish authorities show their grandparents and parents.
We Poles are unable either to teach history or to discuss it. History is deliberately falsified in order to create a ruling group and find justification for its actions.
My dream is for older people to understand that the authorities’ interest in them is like an amplitude, with its oscillations connected exclusively to elections. Yet this changes neither the actual material situation nor the level of healthcare they receive; even the range of medicines for seniors is humiliating and serves propaganda alone.
I am a working pensioner, and this is how I see Polish reality and the Polish pensioner—that is, an old person. Perhaps this text will outrage many heroes; that will mean they succeeded, which I am glad about. Perhaps this text will occupy the attention of one of the parliamentarians resting between one quarrel and the next in parliament.