The exhibit is a joint Polish and American project carried out under the auspices of the Consulate of the Polish Republic in New York.
Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka answers questions at a talk at the University of Massachusetts marking the opening of an exhibit celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Polish Solidarity movement.AMHERST – Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka was a journalist when workers at Gdansk, Poland, went on strike in 1980.
She was at the shipyard as the workers locked themselves in and wouldn’t leave. She could only observe, however – the existing Communist regime prohibited Polish journalists from publishing. But those strikes and the Solidarity movement led to end of Communism in that county and helped spread democracy to neighboring countries.
Junczyk-Ziomecka was at the University of Massachusetts on Wednesday to mark the opening an exhibit “Human Solidarity, Polish Solidarnosc,” with 20 plates portraying the history through maps, photos, press clippings and a narrative that also makes connections with the history of the American labor movement. It will be on display through May 31 in the lower level of the W.E.B. DuBois Library.
The exhibit, created in 2010 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Polish Solidarity movement, was a joint Polish and American project carried out under the auspices of the Consulate of the Polish Republic in New York.
Junczyk-Ziomecka said that the difference between her country’s reach for freedom and the revolutions this year in Egypt, Yemen and Libya is that in those countries “there is no a leader.”
“We had Lech,” she said, referring to Lech Walesa, who eventually became president in 1990. He had been a labor leader for more than a decade.
She said she’s afraid about what will happen to Israel during the unrest: “Israel’s security (depends) on Egypt.” And she said the United Nations will be looking to create a Palestinian state.
She said while the revolts continue, “we have to provide human help, to help people who have no places to.” That’s our obligation to them.”
Another difference between the Solidarity movement and the current revolutions, Junczyk-Ziomecka pointed out, is that in Poland there was no bloodshed, although she said strikers thought they would be shot. She said a priest came and offered to hear confession. “Many were afraid ...There was a (long) line to one priest.”
When she was teaching journalism she would tell her students “what is important is not to stay home. Have an instinct something very important, historical is going on.” And get out and see it, she said.