The Foreign Correspondent
When I read the memoirs of refugees
from the People's Republic of Poland who risked their lives and those of their
loved ones by hijacking LOT's plane to West Berlin, my "escape" in no
way resembles this kind of "heroism". My parting with socialist
reality began much earlier during my student years in 1953, when I was 19 years
old and was sent as a student of the Wrocław University of Technology to
practice in the Kasprzak factory of radio receivers located in Warsaw, Wola
district. Because in this factory they didn't know what we were doing, students
were put to work at the mechanical department, at a semi-automatic machine
called "revolver", which made small M3 caliber screws, where M meant
that the screw was specified in the metric numbering, and the number 3 meant
its length, that is 3 millimeters. It was a screw commonly used in electronics,
as most of the electronic parts were then mechanically screwed with such screws
to a metal base, called "shasis". The work on the revolver was
boring, as the machine automatically did all the work needed to make the M3
screw. A few of such machines worked in parallel, all of them making M3 screws.
After a few days of such boring work I asked the foreman supervising the
mechanical department why the radio factory produces M3 screws, which can be
bought in a specialized factory of screws and bolts. The foreman said that such
a solution is not possible, as the factory of screws and bolts prefers to
produce high weight screws and not tiny M3 screws. This is the result of a
central, socialist plan, which set the obligation to perform a certain weight,
kilograms of screws per year without getting involved in their diversity.
It was then that I understood that I would not change the economic system of
the People's Republic of Poland by myself, and that the sinister anti-communist
idea of emigration sprouted in me, although I did not yet know where and when.
So much for the reasons of my aversion to the socialist system. It was just
that I and the communist system did not fit together, just as "the
hunchbacked one does not fit into the flat wall". One could say that I was
characterized by an innate "anti-socialist hump". In the
meantime, I think it's been 10 years. I finished my studies at the Wrocław
University of Technology and learned English. I wrote several scientific
articles and got an invitation to work at the University of Uppsala, Sweden,
where I had already been valued as an electronics specialist, a specialist in
the construction of scientific instruments. Below I am going to describe, how
in those times of 60s, difficulties with obtaining a foreign passport looked
like.
My escape from the People's Republic
of Poland.
Actually, I escaped from the
People's Republic of Poland three times. Twice I returned to Poland trying to
adapt my hump of anti-socialism to the realism of the People's Republic of
Poland, but the third time the People's Republic of Poland insulted me by
refusing to extend my passport for good and I asked for asylum in Sweden. I
became a foreign correspondent of a party newspaper published in Lublin under
the name "Sztandar Ludu" (People's Banner). The sponsor of my
second trip to Sweden was Professor Maria Curie Skłodowska University,
Włodzimierz Żuk, who was my boss at the Institute of Physics of the Maria Curie
Skłodowska University. I also mentioned to him that his help in my trip to
Uppsala would be appreciated by the management of the Institute of Physics with
which he himself maintained good scientific relations.
My application for a Swedish scholarship
to Uppsala University was sent to the Ministry of Higher Education in Warsaw,
which was to issue me with a passport. So I hurried to Warsaw, where the
Ministry in Miodowa Street housed a passport office for "scientists"
like myself.
The replacement value of a three-color ballpoint pen
Every day I visited the Ministry,
asking if my passport was ready for me. In the meantime, I learned from a
friend from Lublin that the People's Army, or Polish Army befriended with the
Red Army of the USSR is interested in my recruitment and that the Institute of
Physics often visits the sergeant from the WKR (Military District Headquarters)
asking where I am staying, and when I return because he has to deliver me very
important documents recruiting me. Two weeks have already passed and in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs I was told that my case is still being examined
by the "relevant authorities" and it is necessary to wait further.
Over time, my person has become part of the Ministry's landscape. One day, walking
along a long corridor lined with a red carpet, I came across a friend of mine,
a friend of Soszyński's, who used to work in the Student Travel Agency, and a a few years earlier, still as a student, I was going with his fiancée, now
probably his wife, to dig potatoes in England. It turns out that
Soszyński has now been promoted because he now works in the same ministry and
even in the Department of Foreign Travel, responsible for issuing my passport.
I shared my frustration with Mr Soszynski for a long delay in this procedure.
Soszyński said that he would check it personally and told me to wait a few
minutes, after which he came back with the Job's news that I could say
goodbye to the trip to Sweden, because personally the Vice-Minister of Higher Education,
comrade Krasowska wrote on my personal file: "The trip should be rejected
because of a personal invitation. Apparently, Comrade Krasowska felt offended
that the University of Uppsala invited me individually, and did not pass on my
"scholarship" to the decision of the Ministry of Higher Education in
Warsaw, where she certainly had different, better than me, party candidates for
scholarship holders. The pale fear was visible on my face, because my friend
Soszyński reassured me that nothing was lost because he knows how to fix such
a situation. It turns out that my colleague was the clerk who looked through
all the documents and summarized them on one page of the typescript for the
special selection committee. This committee met every week and the nearest committee
is to take place in two days' time. Soszyński promised to open a new file and
write a new summary of my "affairs" without mentioning that the
invitation is personal. Comrade Krasowska certainly does not remember all the
matters and does not always take part in the meetings of the selection
committee. In two days' time, this meeting took place and at this meeting, I was
qualified for the trip as a Swedish scholarship holder. Three days later I
received the desired passport. Joyed, I wanted to give a generous bribe to my
friend Soszyński, who refused. However, he asked me, while in Sweden, to buy
him a few cartridges for his four-color ballpoint pen and send them to Poland. The most
important was the red color, which he used most often emphasizing important words,
such as "invitation is personal". Of course, I promised
Soszyński that I would buy some four-color cartridges and send them to him when
I was in Sweden, which was the case. Nevertheless, my adventure with the PRL
system did not end with the issuance of a passport.
Foreign Correspondent of the
"People's Banner".
I had my passport in my hand, but I
was still afraid that the People's Army of the Polish Army was watching me and
maybe they would stop me at the border. I suspected, perhaps without reason,
that the recruitment of me into the army was a trick of the security office, or
of the communist intelligence service, to prevent me from leaving or, worse
still, to blackmail me so that I could become a secret agent for them. Today,
looking at the documents received from the Institute of National Remembrance, I
can see that this possibility has also been considered. So I got on the train
and returned to Lublin to regulate my status in the WKR (Military District
Commission) with a passport issued by the Ministry of Higher Education.
However, when I was in the WKR, the sergeant sitting at the front door was
extremely happy to see me and wanted to hand me a military uniform and a ticket
to a distant sapper's unit in the village of Podjuchy, by the Szczecin Lagoon,
so that I could familiarize myself with the latest technology of building
pontoon bridges as an electronic engineer. I was terrified to accept the
uniformed sorting and the railway ticket and refused and escaped to the
street. I assumed that I had no more than an hour to save myself before
the sergeant sent the police to arrest me. On the street, I came across
Professor Teske, a friend of mine, also a physicist who lectured at the
Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). After explaining my tragic situation,
Professor Teska announced that in such a case only the almighty party, i.e.
PZPR, could help me. He reassured me that the fact that I am not a member of
this party can be helpful to me, as the Party is looking for young non-party
candidates whom it would like to take into its communist womb. So I went
to the Provincial Committee of the Party, but not knowing who could help me, I
joined the editorial office of the party newspaper called "Sztandar
Ludu" and presented my concern to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper.
The editor, whose name I don't remember anymore, became interested in my
problem and mentioned that he himself has no influence on the activity of the
WKR, but the Second Secretary of the Party of the PZPR drinks vodka with the
colonel, who is the head of the WKR and goes hunting together. Perhaps he can
help. So we went to the second floor to the second secretary and there I
presented my and the University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska University's problem
to which the military authorities throw "logs at scientific feet". I
also mentioned that while in Sweden I will be working at the Institute of
Nuclear Physics and perhaps learn something about how to make an atomic bomb.
The secretary's prints stated that the PZPR or Party protects and supports
young scientists and will call the WKR with a request to correct the
unfortunate situation. What he has done. I promised the editor of the People's Banner that while in Sweden I would write how badly it is to live in
capitalism, which I also did by later criticizing Swedish food in the People's
Banner, for example, Swedish minced chops that have no comparison with a Polish
pork loin with fried cabbage. So I became the unofficial Foreign
Correspondent of the Communist daily newspaper. Straight from the
Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, I went to the
military WKR, where again the sergeant at the entrance door was blocking my
way. Through the gap between the sergeant's desk and the stairs, I ran to the
second floor knocking on the door of the colonel who was already waiting for
me. When the colonel saw my military booklet and the lack of entries about the
exercises I was obliged to perform, he was very worried, but he released me
from the obligation of today's training in the field of building pontoon
bridges. I promised the Colonel that after returning from my secret scientific
mission I would try to catch up, but somehow until today, 57 years later, I
feel guilty that my PRL Lieutenant Reserve's booklet shines with empty pages.
After leaving the WKR, I ran to the railway station and got on a train heading
to Warsaw and the same night to a train to East Berlin and then to Sweden. As I
later found out, that night "some people" were looking for me by
phone, calling my family and my girlfriend. These people were supposedly very
disappointed that I had already crossed the border of the People's Republic of
Poland, or maybe even the border of the countries of the People's Democracy,
and lost the opportunity for an interesting conversation with me.
Jan Czekajewski
30 October 2019
