TRUTH ABOVE ALL.

Translated from Polish by Mark Matyszewski
Notes added by Mark Matyszewski

Zbyszek Koreywo (ZK):  Where and when was today Ph.D. in History, Dariusz
Ratajczak, born ?

Dariusz Ratajczak (DR):  I was born in Opole, on November 28, 1962, but,
just like a considerable majority of the inhabitants of this city,  I am not
a native Silesian.

ZK :  Who were your parents ? What did they do ?

DR : My father, Cyryl Ratajczak (b.1928) comes from Wielkopolska. (1) By the
way, the name Ratajczak is typical of that region of Poland. My father, the
son of Michal Ratajczak, a Wielkopolska insurgent (2) and volunteer in the
Polish-Soviet war, was born in Srem (40 km south of Poznan). My grandfather
Michal, a clerk in the local Health Fund,(3) and local party activist (from
1937, he belonged to the Christian-Democratic Labor Movement) (4) ensured a
good, comfortable childhood to my father and his brothers. They were a solid
and hard-working petit bourgeoisie Wielkopolska family. In 1940, my father,
then a 12-year-old, was deported  by the Germans for forced labor. Actually,
he worked for the German "bauers" throughout the whole war. After his return
to Srem, he, along with his father, became active in the Polish People's
Movement; (5) he paid for it with a month long arrest in 1947. By the way,
he shared the cell with his father. A year later, with a new first name
(Cyryl was replaced with Antoni), he began studies at the Faculty of  Law of
Poznan University. After completion of studies and practicum, he came to
Opole, where he started working on a legal team. My father, today retired,
was an outstanding lawyer, of an acknowledged reputation in the Polish legal
profession. He defended, among others, one of the Kowalczyk brothers,
accused of blowing up the assembly hall in the School of Pedagogy in
Opole.(6) He took part in the political trials during martial law.(7) Also,
he was active in the domain of sport, as a soccer referee. My late mother,
Alina (her maiden name was Czuchryj), came from the Eastern Borderlands of
the Polish Commonwealth. She was born in Chodorow (the eastern periphery of
the Lwow district) to an "oil" family. Until the outbreak of war, her
father, Stanislaw Czuchryj, worked in Polmin, a purely Polish oil company in
the city of Boryslaw. This saved him from deportation to Siberia. The
Russians were not so stupid as to get rid of a professional in the field.
After the war, my mother's family, following the trail of hundreds of
thousands of Poles, arrived in the Western Territories. (8) There my mother
met my father; I and my sister are the result of it. Undoubtedly, the
historic experiences of my family, on both the sword and distaff side, had
influence on my interest in history. I was in a privileged position,
however, because I could fetch information from representatives of two
different traditions: the Wielkopolska tradition, and the Eastern
Borderlands one. Initially, the latter had a greater appeal to my
imagination, and that was thanks to my mother, who made me aware that the
Russians had stolen the Borderlands from us. To me, an 8- or 9-year-old boy,
it was an incredible shock, the more so that, in the elementary school, the
teacher tried to confirm us in the belief that the USSR was our greatest
friend. Besides, my grandpa and grandma repeated constantly to me that in
the East soil was fertile, tomatoes the size of small pumpkins.. This
appealed to the child. Simply, I started disliking those who had stolen the
tomatoes from us, and I automatically carried over this dislike of the
Soviets to the local communists. Also, I was lucky that during school
holidays my father often took me to watch court proceedings. We would drive
throughout the whole country, and he would tell me about grandpa Michal, the
Bolshevik war, (9) and his own imprisonment. Actually, I was lost to People'
s Poland right from the beginning. I did not join the scouts, (10) nor the
Polish-Soviet Friendship Association. Entering high school in Opole, I
already knew that history was going to interest me above all. I was by far
the best historian and geographer in class; I took part, as one of two
representatives of the Opole district, in the Central Historic Olympic Games
in Warsaw. This enabled me to enter university without preliminary exams. I
chose the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, first, because I wanted to
make my father happy, and, second, because my Opole colleagues would choose
the nearby Wroclaw. But I did not want to study at a varsity denoted by the
cryptonym B.B. Alas, this did not signify Brigitte Bardot, only Boleslaw
Bierut.(11) I do not regret that decision. I had truly outstanding
professors and capital colleagues. Without doubt, the strikes in
November-December 1981 hardened and united us. We, fledgling students, had
just begun studying, when - there you've got it, right away a strike. And so
we striked on to 13 December, when the ZOMO (12) asked us, by the way,
politely, to leave the building. Later on - brisk learning, illegal
transport and distribution of books, active social life, return to Opole,
and, from 1988 on, working in the Opole higher education institution.

ZK : Where are the seeds of historical truth sown ?  Can society function
without the knowledge of the past ?

DR : As I have already mentioned, history has surrounded me at all times. I
think, however, that most important is the family milieu, where a man
develops his moral, patriotic, and, partially, ideological backbone. Thank
God, I was raised in an ordinary Polish home. Today it is not as obvious any
more. At present, the majority of young people leave the family home without
the baggage of the past, without grandparents' and parents' stories about
times past. At best, those are babblings, such as "in Gierek's time (13) it
was so good". Schools at every level of education complete the work of
destruction. Although the cretinous Marxists are already gone, they have
been adequately replaced with empty-headed, politically correct idiots, who
are as numerous in Poland as in Australia. Stupidity is not picky about
continents, it seems. It is they, those good-for-nothing historians, who
finish off history, which in their version ceases to be the carrier of
truth, the mistress of life, the reason for national pride. It is they who,
deliberately, convert history into a handmaid of current political interests
of equally morally and intellectually cheap ruling elites. Finally, it is
they who decide which fact or historical figure to make prominent, and about
which to keep silent to the death. Of course, they do it from the angle of
current political usefulness. That is why young people know nothing about
Dmowski (14) (because he is an ultra-patriot, and we are moving toward the
post-Freemason hybrid called the European Union), Witos (15) (because he
defended Polish land, and in the European Union land can be transferred to
foreign hands), the Silesian Risings (16) (because it is Polish nationalism,
and Upper Silesia ought to be the place of Polish-German cooperation), the
Poznan June of 1956 (17) (because Jacek Kuron (18) et consortes were not
there, and the authorities shot only at anonymous Poles), the murder of
Bogdan Piasecki (19) (because Jews committed the murder, so it is not proper
to speak about it), et cetera. Instead, the Kielce pogrom, (20) the March
events, (21) and the Gehenna of the Trockists from the KOR are rattled on
about from A to Z, and, in addition, over all this the Holocaust Industry is
watching, and talking with the teachers' mouths into young people our
alleged offenses against the Jews. Everywhere half-truths, lies, propaganda.
But it is not at all madness, but a method leading to the destruction of
historical consciousness, to the cutting off from the truly Polish
historical heritage, without which the nation cannot exist. A nation is,
after all, past, present, and future generations. If we break the first
element of the triad, the whole starts making no sense. And that is where
the "creativity" of the politically correct correctors of history is
leading.

ZK :  What were the circumstances of your first contact with  dangerous
history ?

DR : First of all, I must explain that I am a historian and publicist
dealing mainly with  most recent history of Poland, so I encounter history,
or dangerous topics, very frequently. But it is not I who invent them, nor
decide whether they are dangerous or not. It is "social demand", the
obligatory trend, etc., that decide about it, unfortunately. My
non-reformability, however, is based on the fact that, unlike others, I am
completely not interested in those trends and fashions. If there is an
uninvestigated historical fact, I investigate it, whether somebody likes it,
or not. If there is a problem which requires at least reporting about, or
expounding, I report about and expound it. Regardless of whether they accuse
me, for instance, of breaking the law. Because of this, I am an easy target
for attacks. Such is the lot of a man not caring about censorship (the
communist one before, and the politically correct one today). Good God, I
didn't become a historian to write between lines. But to answer your
question directly.. Well, in 1986, I defended in Poznan my Master's thesis
entitled  "The Poles in the Wilno District 1939-1944"  (later on, after
additions, I published it in the book form). One of the chapters dealt with
the struggles of the Wilno and Nowogrod Home Army (22) units with Soviet
partisans. Having read the work, my mentor, the late professor Ochmanski, a
well-known expert on history of Lithuania  (a disciple of the great Henryk
Lowmianski), but also a "cement communist", who sat on verification
committees during martial law, blushed, then kicked me out, with a note:
"Change, or no Master's".  I came back a week later, to hear at the door:
"Have you changed it ?" "Yes, I have." The joke was that I had added a
sentence that it was the Soviet units that provoked skirmishes with the Home
Army. Ochmanski trusted my word; he did not even glance at the text.

ZK: What should a historian's role be ? What is the sine qua non condition
for practicing history ?

DR :  A historian has one basic role to perform. It is to reach the truth.
In essence, truth is a historian's only friend. A historian ought to know
that truth has no hues; truth is always clear, and one. Striving after
truth, a historian should avoid like fire "friendly" whispers, such as  "any
coin has two sides", "the golden mean",  "make a compromise", etc., because
they lead him astray, get him closer to lying. After ascertaining the
truth - and here we are touching a historian's other role - the investigator
should share the truth with others, regardless of the consequences. After
all, truth must have not only an individual dimension, but also a social
one. Writing, but not for publication, makes no sense, especially in times
when lies attack us from every side. It is a waste of time. The other part
of your question pertains, in my opinion, to traits which should
characterize a historian, because the sine qua non condition for practicing
history, that is, freedom of speech, is already a past memory. It has been
replaced with political correctness, that is, soc-liberal censorship, or, as
somebody has nicely put it, a "tyranny of good intentions". Thus in today
grim times the sine qua non condition for practicing history is the
historian himself - truthful, independent, immune to punches, and, finally,
simply courageous. Yes, we have lived to see times when, jokingly speaking
(but it is a bitter joke), a historian should be a cross between an
intellectual and a boxer.

ZK : Where, when, and in what circumstances did first troubles start ?  Was
it in an educational institution, or did it take place outside university
walls ?  Who put the initial pressure on you ?

DR : To answer your question requires bringing up numerous details,
including the names of my "worthy harassers". I would not mind if servility,
lying, and - I do not hesitate to use this expression - common boorishness,
so typical of our political elites and many scientific workers, saw the
light of the day. In 1988, I started working in an Opole learning
institution, then called the Silesian Insurrectionists School of  Pedagogy;
in 1995, it became Opole University, but without the Silesian
Insurrectionists, which was a graceful gesture toward the so-called German
minority, growing in strength in Opole Silesia. I found a situation there
which I would define as a "transformation". It meant that professors,
assistant professors, and so on, were shedding off their PZPR (23) robes,
hiding away in the drawers some more disgracing fruits of their up-to-then
creativity (all those books commemorating the Soviet October Revolution, and
the like), in order to turn into "genuine" democrats. They were
authentically frightened that some gigantic inspection was going to take
place any moment and deprive them of their high positions. It was only Prime
Minister Mazowiecki and his "thick line" that soothed them. Perhaps because
of this, later, many of them took a liking to the Freedom Union ? (24) From
red to pink only one step. At that period I buried myself completely in the
didactic work. At several departments (including evening classes), I was in
charge of courses on most recent history of Poland and Europe, and, besides,
I set in motion a historic circle, which once a week grouped students who
tried to "remove white stains in history".  Katyn, the USSR and the Warsaw
Rising, (25) Operation "Tempest" in the Eastern Borderlands, (26) the
National Armed Forces, (27) the pro-independence underground after 1944,
were among the topics of our interest. Although all this was taking place
before the finale of the Round Table, (28) that is, with censorship still in
force, the academic top brass, as I have said already, were not so dumb as
not to sense "the wind of change", so, in effect, we were left alone. In the
first half of the 1990s I had already an established position in the
university. I won't be bragging when I say that during my classes the
classroom was always full. It was nice to hear from the students that I was
considered a reliable historian and excellent speaker  (this wasn't
particularly my own achievement, but that of genes inherited from my father,
a lawyer), who was not afraid to take up topics that were dangerous from the
viewpoint of political correctness, which was pouring, at first
unnoticeably, and then like a waterfall, inside the university walls. And,
of course, I was standing up to it in plain sight, feeling intuitively that
we were facing the danger of replacing communist censorship with its
soc-liberal equivalent. What is more, I anticipated that the result of the
victorious invasion of political correctness would be a slavish subjugation
of the science of history to politics. There has never been my consent to
this. ... ...

----------------------

Notes to PART  I:

1. Greater Poland, Posnania.  An area in western and central Poland, drained
by the Warta, Odra, and  Wisla. Its main city is  Poznan.

2. The Poznan Rising. A military action of the Wielkopolska Polish
population  against the German authorities, launched on 27 December 1918,
and settled by the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919.

3. Kasa Chorych. In 1920-34, a self-governing  institution  providing sick
leave benefits to the insured and their families.

4. Stronnictwo Pracy.

5. Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe. A political party formed in 1945 (it ceased
to exist in 1949). Its leader was Deputy Premier Stanislaw Mikolajczyk. In
opposition to the communist authorities,  it advocated, among others, strong
self-government and independent family farms. The communists  used
repressive measures against its members.

6. In October 1971.

7. Declared on 13 December 1981 by the communist authorities under General
Jaruzelski to suppress the Solidarity Trade Union. Suspended on 31 December
1982; lifted on 22 July 1983.

8. Ziemie Zachodnie.  A former German territory, ceased to Poland by the
Allied Powers during the Potsdam Conference in July-August 1945.

9. Fought in 1919-21; concluded on 18 March 1921 in Riga with a peace
treaty, which defined the border between Poland and Bolshevik Russia.

10. Zwiazek Harcerstwa Polskiego, ZHP (Association of Polish Scouts). The
communist version, created in 1956, of an association, founded  in 1918.
Harcerz, in Polish: scout.

11. Boleslaw Bierut (1892-1956). President  in 1947-56; general secretary of
the United Polish Workers' Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza,
PZPR) in 1948; 1st secretary of  its Central Committee in 1954-56. An NKVD
agent; one of the leading Stalinist figures in Poland, directly responsible
for numerous crimes of the secret police apparatus.

12. Zmotoryzowane Odwody Milicji Obywatelskiej (Motorized Reserve Units of
Citizen Militia). A police group, whose role was to keep order during
turbulent events, such as natural catastrophes. During martial law in
1981-82, the ZOMO were used to disperse demonstrations and break strikes.
Notorious for ruthlessness and brutality.

13. Edward Gierek (1913-2001). 1st Secretary of the PZPR  in 1970-80. His
reign was considered more liberal and pro-West than that of his predecessor,
Wladyslaw Gomulka.

14. Roman Dmowski (1864-1939). Politician and publicist. Co-founder and
leader of the Narodowa Demokracja (National Democracy), a.k.a. the Endecja,
a right-wing, national movement. Led the Polish delegation to the Paris
Peace Conference. "[P]robably the single most significant figure in modern
Polish politics" (Norman Davies). Opponent of Jozef Pilsudski and the
Sanacja.

15. Wincenty Witos (1874-1945). Politician, farmer leader, publicist; deputy
from Galicia (the Austrian Partition) to the imperial Reichsrat in Vienna
in 1911-18.

16. Three risings (1919, 1920, and 1921) of the Polish population  in Upper
Silesia against the German authorities.

17. Poznanski Czerwiec 1956. A general strike and street demonstrations of
the workers of the Cegielski Metal Factory in Poznan. On 28-29 June 1956, ca
100,000 people demonstrated under the slogan "Bread and freedom." During the
pacification by the units of the Polish army and security apparatus tens of
workers were killed.

18. Jacek Kuron (b. 1934). Politician  and publicist. One of the leading
figures of  the anti-communist opposition in Poland, co-founder in 1976 of
the Committee for the Defense of Workers (Komitet Obrony Robotnikow, KOR).
In 1956, he belonged to PZPR (expelled in 1964).

19. Sixteen-year-old son of Boleslaw Piasecki (1915-79), right-wing
politician and publicist. In January 1957, Bogdan Piasecki was abducted and
murdered by "unknown perpetrators." His body was badly mutilated.

20. On 4 July 1946 in Kielce (central Poland). In accordance with the
official version, 39 Jews were killed by an angry crowd, as a result of a
hearsay that Jews had committed a ritual murder on a 9-year-old boy.

21. The widespread student protests, on 8-11 March 1968, against the
communist authorities' harassment of  students who had taken part in an
anti-censorship demonstration. The subsequent political crisis, including an
"anti-Zionist" campaign inspired by the authorities, resulted, among others,
in emigration from People's Poland of ca 20,000 persons of Jewish
extraction.

22. Armia Krajowa (AK). During WWII, the biggest and strongest Polish
underground resistance organization, operating in the pre-war Polish
territory.

23.  Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (The Polish United Workers'
Party). A communist party, founded in 1948 through the enforced merger of
the Polish Socialist Party with the Polish Workers' Party. The former,
founded in 1892, fought the Tsarist rule in the Russian Partition; the
latter, founded in 1942, was Soviet-sponsored. The PZPR was the ruling party
of People's Poland, loyal to the Soviet Union. Dissolved on 27 January 1990.


24. A political party, of liberal, conservative-liberal, and Christian
profile, founded in 1994. Tadeusz Mazowiecki was its leader from 1995 to
2000. In 1989, as Premier, in a speech to the Sejm (Polish Parliament),
Mazowiecki declared: "We are marking off the [communist] past with a thick
line".

25. Launched by the Home Army on 1 August 1944 against the German garrison
in Warsaw. The Soviets refused assistance to the insurgents.

26. Akcja "Burza". The military activities, including sabotage, of the Home
Army at the rear of the German Army, begun in March 1944 in Volhynia. At
times, the Polish units fought arm-in-arm with the Soviet partisans and the
Red Army. After the fighting, most of the Home Army units were disarmed by
the Soviets, and either incorporated  into the Polish army within the Red
Army, or  shipped  to Soviet concentration camps.

27. Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (NSZ). An underground resistance organization
formed in September 1942, independent of the Home Army. It fought against
the Germans and  Soviet partisans. After the war, the NSZ fought the
communist authorities. As a result of mass arrests of its members by the
communist security apparatus, the organization stopped its activities in
1947. Its leaders were executed.

28. Round Table (Okragly Stol). A conference of representatives of
Solidarity (incl. Lech Walesa, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and Jacek Kuron) and
communist authorities between  6 February and 5 March 1989 in Magdalenka
near Warsaw. The negotiations made possible the formation of the first
non-communist government in post-war Poland. ... ...

Part II.

... ... DR.  (cont.) I prepared a number of "incorrect topics", which I
followed through during classes. Let me mention only a few of them: "Starve
the rat, or critically about American feminism", "Freemasonry yesterday and
today", "Hitlerism and Communism - common roots", "Does colonialism deserve
to be unconditionally condemned ?", "The history of French Algieria", and so
on, and so forth. The students liked it a lot, but, at the same time, more
and more often,  I was called on the carpet by the director of the History
Institute, Professor Stanislaw S. Nicieja (privately, the supervisor of my
PhD thesis, and, later, the almighty Rector of Opole University). He would
tell me, more or less, this: "I don't impose anything on you; you've got
excellent term marks, and we appreciate your knowledge. But do you really
have to charge like this ?  I know that what you do is based on sources, but
do not go against the current, or it may end up bad." Frankly speaking, I
didn't listen attentively to the professor, although he was a distinguished
expert on "going with the current", which he proved a few years later, when
he did not hesitate to sentence me to "devouring", during an action,
organized at the "top", whose purpose was to finish off Dr. Ratajczak. Those
friendly chats over coffee, however, were not the beginning of real
troubles, nor was it my defending of my PhD thesis entitled "The Attitudes
of the inhabitants of Opole Silesia in the light of the military court
sentences in 1945-55".  Here - a short explanation. This work, in spite of
its neutral title, was, actually, a 500-page review of communist repression
in the Opole district during the first decade of "People's Poland".  Its
"uncomfortableness" was based on the fact that I mentioned in it the names
of judges, prosecutors, employees of the UB (29), militiamen, and informers,
who were responsible for minor and major crimes of that period. It just so
happened that in the footnotes appeared the names of daddies of the current
employees of Opole University. For this reason, the defense of the thesis
took place behind closed doors. The beginning of real troubles is connected,
of course, with my publishing, in March 1999, of a little journalistic book
entitled DANGEROUS TOPICS. Before I move on to the consequences of this
publication, let me once again make a few introductory remarks. During the
lectures, more than once, I touched on the so-called Jewish subject. This
was most justified, especially in the context of most recent history of
Poland. When I was speaking of the functions, structure, and make-up of the
Ministry of Public Security, the grim ubecja <italics>, I would mention that
in this institution there was an overrepresentation of individuals of Jewish
extraction, especially on the decision level. When I mentioned the case of
the monstrous murder of Boleslaw Piasecki's son, I would say, in accordance
with truth, that all the traces of the murder led to Israel. When, finally,
I was discussing the attitude of the majority of Jews toward Poland's
regaining independence in 1918, and their conduct in the years of the
Polish-Bolshevik war, as well as after the Soviet invasion of September 17,
1939, I would state that they were not, by any means, the paragon of
patriotic virtue. This irritated the university acabus. The end came
eventually, under some pretext, in 1998, when my classes on most recent
history of Poland got cut back; they were "transferred" to the 19th century.
This did not help much, because the Jewish  ubeks  could always be replaced
with the Jews-Litwaks <italics> (30),  who were equally anti-Polish. All in
all, this was painful to me, the more so that, firstly, I would always base
my lectures on sources, and, secondly, the Jewish subject was not the center
of my historic interest. Of course, there was much criticism on my part
there, but this precisely posture is connected immanently with the job I do.
In any case, no one accused me of the infamous anti-Semitism. It was similar
in the case of several lectures devoted to Holocaust revisionism, which I
had within the university walls in 1997/98. The university authorities
murmured a little, whereas students stumbled over one another to attend,
because, perhaps for the first time in the history of a Polish university,
somebody was objectively relating the opinions of this milieu, one which is
a social and historical reality. A milieu - let us add - that includes also
Jews. By the way, after these lectures, many students demanded from me,
behind the stage, a clear attitude toward the theses announced by the
revisionists. Invariably, I would reply as follows: "If the revisionists
think there were no gas chambers, they are wrong. If they think six million
Jews did not perish during the war, they are right. If they state that the
Holocaust is not the pivot of the 20th century martyrdom, they are right.
Otherwise, we would feel contempt for victims of the Soviet Gulag
Archipelago, the Armenian victims of Turkish politics during World War One,
or our own countrymen, victims of  German and Soviet savagery in 1939-45.
And what about the poor Tutsis, murdered by the gone-mad members of the Hutu
tribe ?  Can victims be divided into better and worse ones ?" As I have
mentioned, at the beginning of March 1999, I published, at my own expense,
and in the symbolic edition of 320 copies, the book  DANGEROUS TOPICS. I did
it in order to leave behind, to record in a journalistic form, a trace of
some of my university lectures. One of its subchapters was entitled
'Holocaust Revisionism'. For a month, nothing happened at the university,
even though I had personally handed in the first copies to Rector Nicieja
and the university "top", with an appropriate, polite dedication. A month
later, I am being summoned by . no, not the Rector, nor the director of the
History Institute, but one of the editors of .the Gazeta Wyborcza (31) who
tells me with a smirk: "We'll trample you into the ground for the little
book, and the little subchapter on the Holocaust". Well, so it all started
out. On April 8, the Council of the Pedagogic-Historic Faculty of  Opole
University gathers up summarily, and condemns me "spontaneously". Only Prof.
Joanna Rostropowicz breaks off, by observing soberly: "I can't condemn
Ratajczak, because I haven't read the book. I get the impression that none
of the present has read it. Who the hell are those Holocaust revisionists ?"
Rostropowicz is right, but never mind that - we are told to condemn, so we
are condemning. Stalinism  rises from the dead in Opole. At the same time,
the Gazeta Wyborcza, and other left-wing periodicals, the Auschwitz Museum,
the Israeli Embassy, the "moral authorities", some members of Buzek's
government (32), as well as people from the entourage of President
Kwasniewski (the left and right in the same line), begin a sharp assault.
Director of the Auschwitz Museum states that I am a neo-Nazi. The spokesman
for the Israeli embassy, Michael Sobelman, is surprised that "such a man
works at a Polish university" (a clear suggestion to "kick me out").
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (33) sends me to a mental institution, and so on, and
so forth. Meanwhile, the frightened Rector Nicieja receives phone calls from
the VIPs in the Ministry of National Education, the "Simon Wiesenthal
 people", and whoever you like, warning him: "If you don't kick out that
Ratajczak, your school will be boycotted, and you won't get any grants".
Well, so Rector suspends me from my duties as academic teacher. Alas, he is
a trustworthy man, who is sensitive to the direction of the wind of history
(today he fulfils the glorious function of a Polish Republic Senator from
the SLD). (34)  In April 1999, I was going through hard times. My timid
university colleagues turned their backs on me. There came a point when they
would not recognize me in the street. It has remained so since. The media
were spitting at me.. As if it were not enough that I was suspended from my
job, the university was told by the "top" to take me to an academic court.
The court lasted a year, and was an open ridicule of justice. During the
consecutive hearings, I would give 2-hour speeches on the subject of freedom
of speech and the right to question. Also, I would make a stand toward the
theses announced by the Holocaust revisionists, but the university
inquisition seldom pretended to listen to me. The verdict was ready: a
disciplinary removal from the university, with a 3-year ban on work in the
teaching profession. I had only the satisfaction of intellectually finishing
off  Messrs. judges (the moral bottom, and of like legal knowledge), as well
as the disciplinary spokesman for Opole University, Prof. Wieslaw
Lukaszewski, who, after a year of investigation, was not able to produce
even one prosecution witness. When I showed to my father Lukaszewski's
prosecution statement against me, my father asserted that, compared to
Lukaszewski, one Andriei Vyshinsky (35) appeared a good lawyer. Well, but
privately Lukaszewski is a psychologist, and the make-up of the academic
court consisted of a medieval historian, another psychologist, as well as .a
priest from the OU Theological Faculty. Indeed, we have interesting priests
nowadays.. But at least I was comforted by the attitude of my students. They
wrote petitions in my defense to Rector and the press, risking terribly on
the occasion. Two of them got immediately suspended from the university.
When I learned of this, I forbade them any similar acts. Also, with a great
relief, I accepted moral support from numerous countrymen. People phoned me
all the time, cheering me up. Unusually active was the Polonia (36) in the
USA and Canada, who inundated the university with e-mails in my defense.
Several letters came also from Australia. Poles felt intuitively that the
monstrous machinery of political correctness, operating like a steamroller,
was falling down upon one man. I was sinking in a good company, later
supplemented by courageous scientists (Miroslaw Dakowski, Rafal Broda,
Ryszard Bender, Peter Raina, etc.), as well as equally courageous editors of
some newspapers. I would have been a happy man if, at that time, I had
fought only the learning institution's cowards and their commanders. But no
such thing. In May 1999, my case was taken care of by the public prosecutor'
s office, which accused me of breaking Article 55 of the Institute for
National Remembrance Act. (37)  This Article, after the fashion of West
European and other states, punishes with up to three years in jail for the
so-called denial of Nazi crimes. This barely concealed censorship, in force
in Poland since January 1, 1999, signifies, in my opinion, the grave of
historiography, because it puts a stop to scientific questioning, without
which the historian's job makes no sense. The lawmaker, inspired by the
"Holocaust Industry", seems to say: " It all happened so and so; if you try
to deviate, we'll clap you up". Very well, I reply, there is no one in his
right mind who would deny Nazi crimes (against Jews; that is what this
strictly ethnic Act is all about), but nobody will talk into me that it all
happened the way that Messrs. Gross, (38) Wilkomirski, (39) and the whole
bunch of liars working for the Holocaust Industry (also in Australia there
is no shortage of those) wish. Of course, the object of the prosecution's
and court's inquiry is the book DANGEROUS TOPICS, that is, its subchapter
'Holocaust Revisionism'.  My explanation that I merely present the
revisionists' opinions appears futile, and so do my attempts to introduce
defense witnesses, experts, etc. Well, the court knows better.. I've already
got two verdicts, but the end of the affair is nowhere in sight; at present,
I face 10 months in jail. It looks as if I have touched on something that
causes fury of the mighty of the world, because, logically thinking, one
does not persecute for three years a man for dealing with meaningless
trifles.

ZK:  How did your scientific career begin ?

DR: In 1986, after getting a university degree, I went back to Opole. On my
way, I submitted an application for the School of Pedagogy there. Its
processing took two years. It was still the time of flourishing komuna
<italics>, (39) and, reportedly, some papers from the well-known
institution, (41)   (followed me all the way down from Poznan. Thus I
remained in suspense, or perhaps not entirely in suspense, because,
meanwhile, the Polish People's Army claimed me; it was still full of dumb
sergeants, who would be after us for little crosses laid out on our
uniforms. Formally, in February 1988, I became an assistant lecturer at the
History Institute of the School of Pedagogy in Opole. In 1991, I published
my first book, THE POLES IN THE WILNO DISTRICT, 1939-44. Four years later, I
published  THE TESTIMONY OF FATHER WOJCZEK, whose second, expanded edition
appeared the following year. In 1994, I began collecting material for my PhD
thesis, devoted, in fact, to Stalinist crimes in the Opole district. I
defended it in June 1997, automatically advancing to the position of
lecturer at the History Institute of Opole University (formerly, the School
of Pedagogy). A little earlier, in 1996, I published, together with Ryszard
Miazek, THE HOME UNDERGROUND ARMY, 1949-52. In the fall of 1997, I started
collecting material for my assistant professor dissertation on Archbishop
Boleslaw Kominek. (42) These works got interrupted for known reasons. In
April 1999, after publishing DANGEROUS TOPICS, I got suspended, and then
fired, in a disciplinary manner, from Opole University, with a 3-year ban on
work as teacher. Afterwards, in 2001, I published  EVEN MORE DANGEROUS
TOPICS. This year, a second, expanded edition of the book will appear, as
well as a new volume from my pen, entitled  THE CASE OF DR. DARIUSZ
RATAJCZAK, OR THE UNIVERSITY BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. Currently, I work as a
night porter in Opole. ... ...

-------------------------

Notes to PART II:

29.  Urzad Bezpieczenstwa Publicznego (Department for Public Security), the
UBP, informally UB [oobe] (also derog. ubecja <italics>). A political police
force, created in July 1944 by the Krajowa Rada Narodowa (Home National
Council), a Soviet-controlled Communist organization, acting as the official
representation of the Polish nation. In 1945, the UB was placed under the
Ministry of Public Security. Formally in charge of internal security of the
Polish state, in reality the UB fought ruthlessly any opposition to
Communist authority. Its core consisted of  NKVD officers, and its
rank-and-file included Communist activists, trained in the Soviet Union,
Nazi collaborators, and common criminals. (UB members were referred to by
the derogatory term ubeks <italics>).  In December 1956, it was renamed
Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa (Security Service), the SB.

30.  Litwacy.  Jews  from Russia proper who, from the late 19th century on,
settled in the Russian Partition (Russian Poland).  Some of them came from
Lithuania (in Polish: Litwa).

31. The Gazeta Wyborcza (Election Newspaper). A daily, edited in Warsaw
since 1989; ideologically close to the Freedom Union. Originally, a
Solidarity periodical, supporting the movement's campaign to win election
to the Sejm and Senate in 1989. Its editor-in-chief is Adam Michnik.

32.  Jerzy Buzek. Premier  from 1997 to 2001. Of the AWS (Akcja Wyborcza
Solidarnosc, Solidarity Election Action).

33. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski (b.1922). Historian and politician. In 1940-41,
prisoner at Auschwitz.  Member of the Home Army. Co-founder of  the Council
For Aid to Jews (Zegota). Imprisoned during the Stalinist period. In
1983-90, lecturer at universities in Munchen, Augsburg, and Eichstatt,
Germany. Honorary citizen of Israel (from 1991). Minister of External
Affairs in 1995 and 2000-01.

34.  Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (Democratic Left Alliance).  A coalition
of left-wing political parties, created in 1991, and led by former members
of the PZPR (which was dissolved in 1990), including President Aleksander
Kwasniewski.

35. Andrei Y. Vishinsky (1883-1954). Soviet chief prosecutor during the
Stalinist purges of the 1930s.

36. The Polish community outside of  Poland.

37. Instytut Pamieci Narodowej, the IPN. Founded in 1998 to collect
documents on the Communist security apparatus, and carry out investigations
of Nazi and Communist crimes.

38. Jan Tomasz Gross, author of NEIGHBORS: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWISH
COMMUNITY IN JEDWABNE, where he alleges that in the summer of 1941, the
Polish inhabitants of a small town Jedwabne in Eastern Poland savagely
murdered, for obscure reasons  (plunder ? irrational hatred ?), 1600 Jewish
neighbors. Norman Finkelstein calls Gross's book "a kind of Goldhagen for
Beginners" and "standard Holocaust Industry literature".

39. Binjamin Wilkomirski, real name: Bruno Doessekker, a Swiss writer,
claiming to be a child Holocaust survivor, author of FRAGMENTS:  MEMORIES OF
A WARTIME CHILDHOOD. It has been found that he is not Jewish, and was not in
concentration camps as a child.

40. Polish derogatory term for the Communist system and its functionaries.

41. The SB (see Note 29).

42. Boleslaw Kominek (1903-74). Archbishop of Wroclaw. During the Stalinist
period, prevented by the Communist authorities from residing in Wroclaw and
being consecrated. Clandestinely consecrated in 1954; consecration was kept
secret until 1956. Cardinal from 1973. ... ...

- - - - - - - End of Part II.
Part III.

... ... ZK:  Would you agree that moral prostitutiion is as old as physical
one ?  In other words, there have always been people whose conscience can be
bought off.  Nonetheless, recently - let us say since the end of WWII - the
quantity of moral prostitution has been growing rapidly.  What is the reason
that such a big part of world population has lost its moral foundation,
which it built, with great effort, since Christ's time ?

DR:  Your have brought up a very interesting topic.  A moral prostitute is
the smarter sister of the purchasable simple girl who offers her body at the
street curb.  What the former offers is not the body, but conscience.  That
is the proper object of desire in her.  Of course, she may offer her own
body if need be (that is why she shows understanding of and tolerance for
sexual promiscuity), but it would be only a means leading to an end, that
is, the buying off and prostituting of conscience.  There have always been
people with conscience for sale.  Not infrequently, they have occupied
prominent positions, deciding about the destinies of individuals, social
groups, and nations.  I think, however, that, for hudreds of years, it is
not they who have determined the moral course of history.  Why not ?
Precisely, because even those anti-moralists have felt (often on a bed of
the ultimate pain, but never mind details) their own earthly misery,
limitation, or imperfection, resulting from the awareness of their being
mortal men.  Even the worst rascal has been concerned about death, or rather
about punishment awaiting him for a life steeped in the mire of evil.
Simply, with most of those people, conscience has awakened at some point
(ofter too late).  In any case, it has surely been so since the beginning of
the Christian era.  Fear of divine punishment and evernal condemnation has
broken even the hardest thugs.  Finally, in remote times, in the long run,
there was no social permission for immoral conduct.  It was significant that
those simple, often incredibly primitive people, not infrequently victims of
insanity (which would change them temporarily into nearly animals),
resulting from famine, wars, and plague, would eventually get back on the
track of morality.  Because God said so;  because it was impossible to carry
on for long in defiance of the natural order.  True, an imperfect order, but
still an order.  The situation changed radically in the second half of the
18th century.  It was then that God's existance began to be adamantly
questioned.  The Creator was replaced with Man, an allegedly powerful being,
responsible only to himself, free of all the hitherto existing limitations
and traditional morality.  This opinion, spread by the "chosen ones", that
is, the fledgling caste of intellectuals, bore poisonous fruit in the form
of the French Revolution (or rather, more precisely, the revolution in
France), as well as the Bolshevik, Mexican, and other revolutions.  Even the
Hitlerite "revolution", limited nationally, was its mutant child.  After the
Second World War, and the fiasco of the Bolshevik and Hitlerite experiment
(up to a certain point, it had been a sort of "useful folly" to the
"intellectual inquisitors"), there was a return to the source, that is, the
slogans of the intellectual perpetrators of the revolution in France.  For
this purpose, "the top achievement of modern civilization" - I mean the
media - was used on an unheard of scale.  The slogans they have spread boil
down to essentially this:  traditional morality does not exist, everything
is relative, depending on a point of view, and everything is for sale, even
the ridiculous, obsolete human conscience.  After 200 years of brainwashing,
the public has yielded to the propaganda, It had no chance of winning out
against a power having at its disposal fefined means of influencing the man.
What is more, the public has adopted the propaganda, because life without
conscience , or with "rotary conscience", is very convenient - it frees from
responsibility.  So the mighly of this world - the true inheritors of the
18th century personal enemies of God - feeding on the superficial,
discriminatory freedom (but "there is no freedom for the enemies of
freedom" - it is about us, Zbyszek), weaving a long golden chain,
reinterpreting history, etc., have turned people into a passive herd,
reacting like Pavlov's dogs.  (I would reduce it to two issues:  the
"intellectual oppressors" ensure the comforts of everyday life to the meed,
then require in exchange a strict respoect for the order they have created.)
It is a System where freedom is based on lack of freedom, tolerance is the
opposite of tolerance, and thoughtlessness replaces common sense.  Such is,
among others, the infamous political correctness - the protector of
interests of the ruling classes from Washington to Warsaw to Canberra.  The
tragedy is that most people want to live in this golden cage.  Luxurious
vegetation has its own charms, it seems.  In spite of this, I am an
optimist.  Sooner or later, it will all collapse like a house of cards.  One
cannot live forever in an artificial, imagined world.  People will open
their eyes eventually.  It is not only the historian in me who says this,
but also the person who believes in the power of the divine order of
thingsl.  Alas, I probably will not live until then;  I will fall fighting
the System.  Yet, there is no war without casualties;  casualties are,
actually, necessary.  Especially for a good cause.

ZK:  You use the terms "The French revolution" and "the revolution in
 France".  Would you explain the difference between these two ?

DR:  The French Revolution.  What an insult to France.  After all, the spur
for the revolution came from international Freemasonic circles, or, more
precisely, deeply initiated Freemasonic circles, the "illuminates", who
picked out France - the key and richest country in Europe - as their first
victim.  Thus, "the revolution in France", because it did not have much in
common with the spirit of France, the idea of "Eternal France" and "the
Eldest Daughter of the Church".  Real France is the Capetians and bleeding
Vendee (43) during the bandit revolution, not the handpicked society of
Freemasons and their allies, murdering men in the name of "progress",
struggle against religion, etc.  But let us not forget that real France is
also Napoleon Bonaparte, who brought an end to this barbarity by using the
slogan "the good of mankind", and showed respect for the French state and
national interests.  Similarly, there was no Russian revolution;  instead,
there was a Bolshevik coup in Russia, which was sponsored by the world
globalists and Germans.  Speaking of the Jewish revolution in Russia
(because it was the Jews who crammed the decision-making posts of the
Bolshevik revolutionaly machinery),  without the determination of small-town
Jewish mob in Russia, the Bolsheviks would have been thrown out to the
juunkyard of history as early as 1919.  By the way, today the "Holocaust
Industry" stresses Jewish suffering during WWII, but I've got the
irresistible impression that this practive is but a screen for the Jewish
considerable part in the crimes of Communism.

ZK:  In the light of what you have just said, aren't you scared of being
accused of anti-Semitism ?  After all, some Jews perished during the
Bolshevik revolution as well.

DR:  Jews, too, perished in the revolutionary turmoil, but this does not
contradict the fact that many of them played an essential role in fanning
this hell on earth, and, later, in using repressive measures against Russian
and other nationalities.  For instance, it is significant that contemporary
reports from Russia of Western European diplomats corroborate, gently
speaking, the overrepresentation of this people in the handpicked, that is,
bandit, company of the Bolsheviks.  One only needs to read the White Book of
the British Home Office from that period, or, more exactly, its first
edition, because the appropriate passages on the Jewish devotion to the
revolution vanished without trace from the next edition.  Of course, it is
hard to speak of all the Russian, Ukrainian, and other Jews' guilt.  After
all, it would  be absurd to insist that, for instance, wealthy people, or
numerous Jews-traditionalists, were in love with the Bolsheviks.  Many of
them fled from the revolution to allegedly anti-Semitic Poland, where they
were treated with great politeness. Before long, they were offered Polish
citizenship, and thair offspring supplemented the ranks of the Communist
Party of Poland. (44)  Perhaps gratitude is the Jewish national trait that
is not excessively developed ?  But this is just in passing....  I will
stress it once again that without the participation in the bandit revolution
of the Bolshevized Jewish nave-nots, and Jewish youths, of the infamous
Chrezvychaika, (45) peacocking with Nagans (46) stuck behind the belts, the
Bolsheviks would have had much trouble with maintaining their grip on power.
You have mentioned the notorious anti-Semitism...  Well, perhaps there are
still individuals who think that Jews are responsible for all the evil in
this vale of tears.  They are not even anti-Semites, they are madmen.
Similarly, there are Jews who regard the so-called goyim as sub-humans,
animals, "pegarim", (47) and whatnot.  There is no cure for madness, that is
all.  At present, te charge of anti-Semitism has become a sort of
exceptionally brutal weapon, which the "Establishment" uses ruthlessly
against independent thinking men (for the greater fun of it, also against
Jews, such as Dr. Israel Shahak (48)).  Write, in accordance with truth,
about the almost racist character of the state of Israel, and you will be an
anti-Semite.  Point to Simon Wiesenthal (49) his errors of the past, or rub
Mr. Adam Michnik (50) and his Gazeta Wyborcza up the wrong way, and you will
be an anti-Semite.  Write a few words of truth about all those Wiesels, (51)
Kosinskis, (52) or a few anti-Polish Australian liars of Jewish extraction,
and you will be an anti-Semite, of course.  Say - once more in accordance
with truth - that Adam Mickiewicz (53) did not have Jewish roots;  you will
say it because you are an anti-Semite.  And so on, on, on.  Sheer paranoia,
or - and here we are going back to the source - an important element of
political correctness.  Yes, the struggle against alleged, born in hateful
heads, anti-Semitism is one of the pillars of political correctness.  At the
same time, those professional philo-Semites babble incessantly about
tolerance, but, in reality, they are the true anti-intellectual opporessors,
or, not infrequently, pro-Jewish chauvinists.  They are men who "belch out
mercy".  I won't be an exceptional discoverer when I repeat the classic
saying that, at present, an anti-Semite is not the one who doesn't like the
Jews, but the one whom the Jews (of course, some, or influential Jews) don't
like.  Signum temporis.

ZK:  In Opole, another court hearing has just taken place, where you have
been accused of the so-called Auschwitz lie.  What has its epilogue been ?

DR:  After 3 years, the District Court in Opole has conditionally closed my
case.  Actually, I demanded complete exoneration, but, as you know, these
days this is practically impossible.  I think that, in the given
circumstances, I have achieved all that could be achieved, the more so that
the prosecutor insisted hard on 10 months in jail.  The verdict has been
taken very bad by the Gazeta Wyborcza, which has mused sadly, with the pen
of Andrzej Oseka, that in "such cases" are delivered  "only such verdicts".
I understand their sadness;  after all, it was Mr. Michnik's periodical
which blew my case to breathtaking proportions.  After the verdict had been
announced on June 7, the assembled audience, who had heard my defense
speech, let me clearly know in private that the only verdict should have
been an acquittal.  It is true, but I would like to stress once again that,
from the very beginning, the matter was decided at the top (by Justice
Minister Hanna Suchocka, in 1999). I was attacked mercilessly by the "moral
authorities", the Israeli embassy, the Wiesenthal Center, etc.;  therefore
the Opole court still acted relatively courageously.  The verdict, by the
way, was of secondary importance to the attackers.  To them, the most
important think is that men such as Dariusz Ratajczak do not have the right
to teach Polish youth. In this matter they are unusually consistent.  After
all, I am still a porter, with nearly zero chance of returning to my true,
and beloved, profession.

ZK:  Permit me to recapitulate on your present circumstances.  A PhD in
History, outstanding expert on the wartime Eastern Borderlands, chronicler
of the Home Army, and lecturer, beloved by students, at Opole University,
you work today as a night porter.  What are your duties there ?

DR:  You know, when the "Dr. Ratajczak scandal" broke in April 1999, an
acquaintance of mine approached me and said nor of less this:  "The fact
that they will kick you out from the university job is nothing.  What is the
worst is that they will destroy you financially.  You will not get any job;
you will go from door to door.  You will be a leper, you will be an
un-person.  Your colleagues won't recognize you in the street - the
colleagues with whom you had beer yesterday."  He was right.  Gradually, I
was left behind on the pavement, without money and friends.  Everywhere fear
and opportunism....  Being unable to do my job, I started looking for other
jobs.  I had numerous job interviews in publishing, educational, and tourist
companies.  It appeared, however, that my education, skills, scientific
title, and command of English were not important.  What was important was
that my name is Dariusz Ratajczak.  "That Dariusz Ratajczak who ticked off
Jews."  It was enough - everywhere refusal.  Eventually, I was lucky to
"grab" the position of night porter in an alcohol, hardboard, etc.
storehouse.  What do I do out there ?  Well, between 6PM and 6 AM, I patrol
on foot 8 ha premises on the outskirts of Opole (clear to hell and gone).
Using a coarse stick (alas, I am not even equipped with pepper spray for
females), I chase away drunks, foxes, martens, and rats....

ZK:  Please, explain to readers of the Polish Weekly how you manage to
support your family ?  Is the salary of night porter enough to make ends
meet ?  In other words, can your wife put food on the table for your
children at the end of the month ?

DR:  I earn the equivalent of 140, and my wife of 200 American dollars a
month.  All in all, we are financial pariahs;  collectively, our earnings
reach with difficulty the country's single average.  The most unpleasant
think for is that, probably, I will never be able to afford decent education
for my children.  My son will not follow in his father's scientific
footsteps, but in those of night porter.  Well, money can't make one happy,
but is needed.  May I take the opportunity to thank those Poles from the US
and Australia who in the summer of 1999 donated funds for the Ratajczak
Family. Heartfelt God bless you.  Thank you, Mr. Koreywo, for this
interview.

ZK:  Thank you Dr. Ratajczak, - our best wishes are with you.

---------------------

Notes to PART  III:

43. French royal dynasty, ruling from 987 to 1328.  The successive
dynasties, the Valois and the Bourbons, were its branches.  King Louis XVI,
executed by the revolutionary government in 1793, was a bourbon.  The
Vendee, department in Western France, on the Bay of Biscay.  In 1793-96, the
site of a peasant insurrection against the revolutionary government, sparked
off by the government's repressive measures against the Roman Ctholic
Church.  The Vendeans were defeated and suffered bloody reprisals.

44. Komunistyczna Partia Polski (KPP).  Founded in 1918.  During the
Polish-Bolshevik war of 1919-1921, the KPP backed the Bolsheviks, and called
for the installation of the Communist system in Poland.  As a result, it was
banned by the Polish government.  Its leaders (many of whom were Jewish)
emigrated to Russia, where they were executed during the Stalinist purges of
the 1930s.  In 1938, the KPP was dissolved by the comintern.

45.  Russian nickname for the Vecheka (Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia
komissiia po bor'be s kontrrevoliutsiei i sabotazhem, VChK), a.k.a. the
Cheka, the political police founded in 1917 by the Bolsheviks.

46.  Russian name for the Nagant revolver, originally designed by the Nagant
brothers of Belgium.  The Russians started their own production in the late
1890s.

47.  In Hebrew:  dead bodies.

48.  Israel Shahak (1933-2001).  Israeli human rights activist and writer,
born in Warsaw, Poland.  Author of Jewish History, Jewish Religion:  The
Weight of Three Thousand Years <italics>.

49.  Simon Wiesenthal (b. 1908 in Buczacz, then the Austrian Partition,
today Ukraine), founder of the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna,
Austria, where, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, "[w]ith an
architect's structural acumen [and] a Talmudist's thoroughness ... he pieces
together the most obscure, incomplete, and apparently irrelevand and
unconnected data to build cases [against "Nazi fugitives"]."  The Simon
Wiesenthal Center  was created in his honor in Los Angeles in 1977.  Today
it has branches in North America, Lating America, Europe, and Israel.  In
1975, Austrian Chancellor Kreisky suggested that during WWII, Wiesenthal
collaborated with the German authorities.  Wiesenthal's reputed accomplishments as a "Nazi hunter", e.g. his role in capturing Adolf Eighmann, have been called into question.  Awarded numerous honors, e.g.
Great Medal of Merit from the President of the German Federal Republic,
Knight of the Honorary Legion of France, presented by the President of
France, Honorary honoris cause, University of Vienna, Doctor honoris cause,
Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland (1994).

50.  Adam Michnik (b. 1946) political activist and publicist, of Jewish
extraction.  One of the leading anti-Communist dissidents of People's
Poland, member of the KOR (see footnote 18). Several times jailed.  Advisor
to Solidarity;  interned during martial law.  Took part in the negotiations
of the Round Table.  Editor-in-chief of the Gazeta Wyborcza, a daily
considered by some the bulwark of political correctness in Poland (see
footnote 31).  In 2001, Michnik declared his support for the former
Communist dignitaries, such as Generals Wojciech Jaruzelski and Czeslaw
Kiszczak (minister of Internal Affairs 1981-90), the main masterminds behind
the anti-Solidarity martial law of 1981-83  ("Today I can understand those
who identified with that state [People's Poland] and defended it....
[Kiszczak and Jaruzelski atoned for their abuses] a hundred thousand
times.... During the past 11 years, I have mentioned both Generals' names
with utmost respect, for their loyalty to democratic Poland.... I am
defending you, General [Kiszczak], like [national] sovereignty.  Because you
were decent."  "Pozegnanie z bronia" [Farewell to Arms].  Gazeta Wyborcza,
3-4 February 2001).  Received many awards, including the OSCE Prize for
Journalism and Democracy in 1996, the IPI Press World Freedom Hero in 2000,
and the Erasmus Prize in 2001.

51.  Elie Wiesel (b. 1928) Jewish American writer. Born in Hungary, today
Romania. After WWII, settled in France;  1963 became an American citizen.
According to his biography, in 1944-45, at the age of 16, he was prisoner at
the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.  His writings (notably the
novel NIGHT) deal with the theme of the Holocaust.  Criticized for
stretching the truth and promoting hatred (against Germans), as well as
enriching himself on the memory of the Jewish victims.  Received many
awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 (West German MPs recommended
him for the Prize).

52.  Jerzy Kosinski (1933-91) Jewish American writer, born in Lodz, Poland.
>From 1957 in America, where he claimed that during WWII he had been
separated from his parents and, alone and homeless, roamed Polish villages.
His book THE PAINTED BIRD depicts solitary wanderings through a rural area,
during the war, of a 6-year-old Jewish or Gypsy boy, searching for food and
shelter.  The "peasants" he meets are extremely primitive and sadistic;  he
witnesses them gouging out eyes, raping a Jewish girl, torturing animals.
Kosinski told Elie Wiesel, who hailed the book as a "poignant account
[which] transcends confession", that it was an "autobiography".  It has been
found that Kosinski was not separated from his parents during the war,
instead he and his parents lived in a relatively secure and comfortable
environment, and were protected by Polish Catholics.  Also, it has been
revealed that to produce his books Kosinski used clandestinely translators
and collaborators to the extent that it may be questioned he actually was
the author.  George Reavey, an American poet, has laid claim to having
written THE PAINTED BIRD.  The novel BEING THERE (made into a movie starring
Peter Sellers) was plagiarized from a Polish novel, well-known in Poland,
The Career of Nikodem Dyzma (by Tadeusz Dolega-Mostowicz, 1898-1939).
Received France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award)
for THE PAINTED BIRD, and the National Book Award (the highest American
literary prize) for the novel STEPS.  THE PAINTED BIRD has been translated
into numerous languages, and praised by celebrities, e.g. Louis Bunuel.

53.  Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855).  Considered the greatest Polish poet.

- - - - - - - End.

* * *  Anyone who wishes to contribute funds to the Ratajczak Family, may
contact Dr. Ratajczak directly at: dariusz.ratajczak@wp.pl

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