“From autumn I began to notice that they were not interested in beer or vodka but that they were looking mainly for some documents. They went through my books and notebooks. But it was not aggressive. These were not interrogations, intensive searches or checks. I simply saw that they were searching for some papers. Of course I realized that I needed to be careful, because I did not want to be expelled from school. Well, the school would not expel me, but our country might send me back. I would not get a passport, for instance. What would I do then? I was already married, and I had a child, it was a student marriage. So my situation was not funny at all. I had to be careful and therefore I did not carry things over the border often. I carried only what I had in my head. This saved me from being expelled from school, but it did not save me from being blacklisted. This continued even after my graduation from the university. They were checking my books and magazines and trying to find some hidden documents in them.”
“I was fortunate that I met a group of people there who were intensely involved in the student protest movement and who established the Independent Association of Students in cooperation with KOR. They were my friends and one of them, Stašek Pyjas, was killed by the security police. He was a friend of mine who got me involved in all this. It began by a petition against the repressions against the workers who got fired from their jobs after the mass strikes in 1976. Right in 1976, when I progressed into the next grade of my studies, large petitions were being organized and Stašek was distributing the papers among the students. We began to meet more often and discuss the things and so on. It went on through the whole autumn, winter, and then in spring the situation escalated so much that the security police could no longer bear it and they murdered him. Obviously, they blamed it on his falling down from the stairs, but this case still has not been completely solved even today. A series of strange suicides followed. Witnesses were disappearing. One student (Stanisław Pietraszko – auth.’s note), the last witness who saw him alive, drowned in a lake, although he never swam, and suicides were happening among the secret police members as well. That was strange.”
“I had the honor to take part in that large mass for one-million people. The meadow where this large demonstration took place was located right under the windows of our student residence halls. It is a special location in Krakow, and there is this huge meadow. In June 1979, immediately before the defence of my thesis or immediately after it. I watched everything and I took part in it, too, of course. (What was the atmosphere there?) It was a celebration as if we had won the war. It was a kind of an eruption, explosion. Nobody was afraid of anything. Everyone was smiling and friendly. The population of Krakow at that time was perhaps seven hundred thousand people, but a million people gathered there. All entry roads where the Pope rode with his convoy were decorated with flowers. People had tears in their eyes. It was something unimaginable. I have never experienced something like that before or after.”
Marian Siedlaczek was born August 18, 1955 in Třinec. Both his parents were Polish nationals and his father Tadeusz Siedlaczek had to join the wehrmacht during the Second World War. After completing the Polish elementary school and the Polish grammar school in Český Těšín, in 1974 Marian received a scholarship from the Polish consulate to study clinical psychology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. While Czechoslovakia was ruled by the restrictive normalization regime, the Polish society enjoyed a political thaw, which became especially noticeable after the Workers’ Defense Committee was established in Poland in 1976. The students in Krakow were determined to bring about changes and they were not deterred even by death of one of their leaders and Marian’s friend, Stanisław Pyjas. Pyjas died at night on May 6th -7th 1977 after receiving a number of threat letters and the Polish state security police was probably responsible for his death. Marian Siedlaczek’s activity at the Jagiellonian University did have some repercussions for him. Although he managed to complete his studies and graduate from clinical psychology, the Czechoslovak StB security police kept him registered as an enemy person and this caused him difficulties in his professional as well as personal life.
Marian Siedlaczek with friends in 1979 in Krakow on the first day of the visit of John Paul II, where the Pope celebrated a mass for one million pilgrims from the entire Poland
Marian Siedlaczek with friends in 1979 in Krakow on the first day of the visit of John Paul II, where the Pope celebrated a mass for one million pilgrims from the entire Poland
