The starting (zero) level

Filadelfijski Boulevard, Demonstration on 1 May 1982

• Something has changed here, said Ola deliberately. - A TV set! What is it? A week ago dad bought a new plasma TV! What’s up? And the lamp, sideboard, curtains? We used to have blinds!
• There isn’t anything in the fridge! Mikołaj is calling from the kitchen. Actually, there is some bottle; I guess there’s milk in it and three cans. Simon asked for coke, what should I give him to drink?

Obtrusive door bell sound first frightened everyone a little. Ola opened the door. There was a tall boy, much older than them.

• Let’s go. Quick. I’m taking you to the Boulevard. It should be safe, at least at the beginning. What’s wrong with you? Can you recognize your cousin? Come on, or I’ll leave you here! Or send you to the official May Day parade and fix it, so that you get flags to carry!

The Boulevard wasn’t far. There were just a few people walking down the street and one small group. They were all the more surprised when the from under the city wall the view on the Vistula and the space between the bridges opened up. A one-kilometer Boulevard section was filled with people. It wasn’t a dense crown, not a clear-cut column, but small groups and single individuals strolling about closely enough to one another to give the impression of a procession making its way in one direction. Or actually in both directions.

• ‘What’s it all about?’ asked Ola. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’
• ‘Well, apparently it’s a holiday so people have come for a walk,’ noticed Simon. ‘It’s normal, isn’t it.’
• When it’s so cold? ‘It’s supposed to be 1 May, but the weather is like it is in March,’ Mikołaj was surprised. ‘What’s going on here, Robert?’
• ‘You never know anything and everything has to be explained to you.’‘It’s a counter-march, the first time since 13 December when people went out into the street, they came here at the call of the underground Solidarity,’ Robert enthused. ‘Revelation! Thousands of people are here!’

Simon, who sometimes has seen, mainly on the British TV, violent demonstrations in various parts of the world, couldn’t believe it.

• ‘What do you call demonstration Robert? This walk? But there’s nothing going on here. There’s no police, no masked faces, nobody is destroying anything, no stones or Molotov cocktails flying through the air. People are smiling, greeting each other, taking pictures.

As if on cue small leaflets fell out of the funny little house (the leaflet were signed by Solidarity and had the Fighting Poland used by the Polish Underground State and the Home army during the Second World War) and were quickly picked up by strollers. Two blue cars appeared on the street and a blue motorboat on the river.

• ‘Police is what you have. Here – said Robert – we have Citizens’ Militia, MO, which is supposed to be more ours, than your police are yours, but actually it is probably the other way round. Your police have nothing against strollers, and here they are probably going have something soon. I have the feeling that not all the photographers here are just participating in the demonstration. Look at the guy wearing the coat and those in the yellow Fiat. I am sure these are secret police agents. They don’t look and behave the same everybody else does.
• Who? ‘I’ve heard about the secret police, but it was long time ago,’ says Simon.
• So we say. So is the tradition. ‘Now they are called Security Service,’ said Robert looking around nervously. ‘Please cover me, I also want to take some pix, but I don’t want them to see me. I don’t want to lose my camera. It was too expensive.
• ‘What do you mean “lose”?’ Simon could not conceal astonishment. ‘Is the weather bad for it?’
• No, but who knows what sort of crime I will commit taking photos of the crowd, the secret police, militia vans, explained Robert. When the photos are published in underground pamphlets they can accuse me of cooperation with the underground. I just want to finish my studies, but I also want to have a souvenir of these events. You know, here it’s quiet, little risk, but when you do something serious you can also be seriously held responsible. I’ve heard that you can lose your car for transporting leaflets in it.
• What underground leaflets, what’s going on here, where are we? Simon kept wondering.

Ola and Mikołaj were even more surprised, but in the meantime their attention was drawn by a red-haired boy, who quite openly was taking pictures of people reading leaflets.

• ‘Is he also a secret police agent?’ asked Ola.
• No, his name is Artur Wiśniewski, a friend of ours and not a secret police agent for sure. Look, he has a resistor in his sweater, the symbol of resistance. Only few people dare wear Solidarity badges, because it means getting in trouble right away. Sometimes militia does not react to resistors.

In the meantime militia started to call people to disperse, anyhow the crowd was smaller, especially some people with children left the demonstration, since the kids had to feel cold in the bitterly cold wind. Simon picked up a small leaflet: ‘1 May – Down with the regime press. Solidarity 1982.’

• ‘We’re in 1982,’ shouted Simon. Is it the famous martial law?

Obviously it was martial law. There were only militia vehicles in the street and a voice from the van could be heard:

• ‘Because of distribution of hostile leaflets and a fear of provocation, we call you to disperse immediately and peacefully. IDs will be checked of those who resist. During the martial law organizing illegal demonstrations is prohibited.’
• Let’s go, said Robert, I don’t want to have you on my conscience. It may get hot here.

A slim blond boy, not much older from them, climbed a low wall.

• To the monument of Copernicus, he shouted.

and together with a group of young people they went through Łazienna St. to the Old Town Market A slightly thinned out crowd followed them.

• This is Tomek Kokociński, student. We meet sometimes, mumbled Robert enigmatically. Let’s go. Anyway, the Market Square is on our way.