Julian Golak

* 1957

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
/
Duration 0:00
Loaded: 0%
Progress: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time -0:00
 
1x
  • "They were printed in an edition of five thousand pieces, in those days it was a large edition, four thousand pieces were smuggled into what was then Czechoslovakia, but unfortunately two thousand pieces were confiscated during the exchange in the Beskydy Mountains, they were burned together with the backpacks by the secret Polish police, who operated mainly on the border. It is clear that the stamps were illegal in Czechoslovakia, but no one in communist Czechoslovakia expected them to be so perfectly printed that if they were used, they would quickly go unnoticed. Interestingly, they were pasted on envelopes in ordinary correspondence and travelled all over Czechoslovakia. And such an envelope with that stamp was delivered to Petr Pospíchal in prison, who was delighted to see such a stamp pasted on the envelope."

  • "Despite various threats, we managed to convince the employees and managed to stop the business on the second shift, on 26 August. The strike was guarded, no alcohol was allowed, which was common in Poland in those days. In Poland everyone drank alcohol at work, even the government introduced a rule that alcohol could be sold in shops only from 1 p.m. However, it was common that especially men had unlimited access to alcohol and alcohol was used as something completely normal. So during the strike there were strict rules and people were careful to keep order, they didn't drink alcohol, if someone tried to pass it around they would break bottles. It was a kind of phenomenon that was born in Poland at that time. The phenomenon was based on the teachings of John Paul II, the Pope and a Pole, who liberated the spirit of the nation to a real struggle for freedom."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Wroclaw, Centrum Historii Zajezdnia, 31.05.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:12:25
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Polish-Czech solidarity still has meaning, says the man who was changed by the Pope

Julian Golak in 2023
Julian Golak in 2023
photo: Post Bellum / Michal Homola

He was born on 14 May 1957 in the small town of Nowa Ruda in Kladsko near the Polish-Czech border. He graduated from the local secondary technical polygraphic school and after graduation he joined the Graphic Works of Post and Telecommunications in Wroclaw in 1975. At the end of August 1980 he organised a strike at the plant in support of the strikers in the Gdansk shipyard and became a member of the Wrocław Interfactory Strike Committee, which gave birth to the independent trade union movement Solidarity. After the declaration of martial law on 13 December 1981, he organised a strike at the company, for which he was arrested and dismissed. He refused an offer to travel to the West and moved back to Nowa Ruda, where he joined the production of Dior radios. He participated in the publication of the underground magazine Żólw (Turtle). From 1985 to 1990 he worked as a teacher and printer at the secondary technical school of printing in Nowa Ruda. In 1990 he founded the publishing house Ziemia Kłodzka and published the monthly Ziemia Kłodzka - From the Kłodzko Borderlands - Glatzer Bergland with articles in Polish, Czech and German. From 1990 to 2019 he was the chairman of the organizing committee of the Polish-Czech Days of Christian Culture. From 1995 to 2019 he headed the Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Association. He was involved in regional politics and was a member of the Lower Silesian Regional Assembly from 2000 to 2005. In 2020, he initiated the naming of the Square of Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity (Skwer Solidarności Polsko-Czesko-Słowackiej) in Wrocław. He is the recipient of numerous Polish and Czech honours. He and his wife Ewa raised four children. In October 2023 he lived in Nowa Ruda.