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Amerykańskie Centrum Kultury Polskiej we współpracy ze Stowarzyszeniem Studentów Polskich w Waszyngtonie
zaprasza na spotkanie z Panią
ANNĄ WALENTYNOWICZ, legendarną postacią Solidarności
i
Panem ANTONIM MACIEREWICZEM, b. Ministrem Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji oraz posłem na Sejm RP
12-go grudnia 2005 r. (poniedziałek) o godz. 17:30 w siedzibie Amerykańskiego Centrum Kultury Polskiej (adres: 2025 O Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20036; blisko stacji metra Dupont Circle, tel. 202-785-2320; [mapka z zaznaczoną lokalizacją]).
Spotkanie poprowadzi prof. dr Mieczysław ("Michael") Szporer z Uniwersytetu Maryland University College.
Wstę $10 na pokrycie kosztów poczęstunku. RSVP assistant@polishcenterdc.org.
The American Center of Polish Culture and The Polish Students' Association of Washington
cordially invites you to an evening celebrating
THE WOMEN OF SOLIDARITY Featuring: Solidarity legend and "woman of iron,"
ANNA WALENTYNOWICZ
Time: December 12, 2005 5:30 PM
Place: The American Center of Polish Culture 2025 O Street NW Washington, DC 20036 (near Dupont Metro; [map available here])
Reception will follow. RSVP to assistant@polishcenterdc.org; 202.785.2320
Ms. Walentynowicz will be accompanied by ANTONI MACIEREWICZ, one of the founders of the underground Committee for the Defense of Workers (KOR) and the former Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration and member of the Sejm, the lower house Parliament.
Dr. Michael Szporer, Professor of English and Communications at University of Maryland University College, will introduce Ms. Walentynowicz.
A $10 donation will be appreciated.
Ms. Walentynowicz’s visit to the United States is sponsored by the Foundation for Free Speech and its president Bogdan Lodyga. Ms. Waletynowicz will officially accept the Truman Reagan Medal of Freedom on behalf of Free Trade Union Solidarity of the Gdansk Shipyard, 1980, from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation at the 7th annual memorial benefit on December 13th. John Paul II and General Edward Rowny will also be honored.
While in Washington, Ms. Walentynowicz will be received at the AFL-CIO, and will subsequently travel to Harvard University and the University of Michigan. She will end her US tour in Chicago where she will be hosted by the American Polonia.
Walentynowicz bio [from Michael Szporer, Great August, forthcoming, Penn State University Press]
A Solidarity legend, the mother of free and independent Poland, the name of ANNA WALENTYNOWICZ is synonymous with the Gdańsk strike and the struggle for a free Poland that brought down communism a decade later. Affectionately nicknamed "Mała" [tiny] by her fellow shipyard workers, her firing on August 7th and forced removal on August 9th from the shipyard sparked the Gdańsk strike, which began on August 14th and subsequently turned into the solidarity strike, in part because of her efforts. The strike was a birthday present from her shipyard co-workers to Walentynowicz, who was born on August 15th 1929.
Were one to look for American parallels, Walentynowicz is Solidarity’s Rosa Parks, in her case a selfless, deeply religious woman who earned respect from ordinary people, which is perhaps the highest form of respect. Her life and her firing inspired Andrzej Wajda’s film Man of Iron. At one time recognized for dedication to her work as Hero of Socialist Labor by the communist regime, Walentynowicz turned Free Trade Union activist after her unsuccessful protests against inequities and corruption in her workplace met with subsequent threats by the SB. Walentynowicz joined the ranks of the WZZ during the solidarity masses performed by father Hilary Jastak after the arrest of Blazej Wyszkowski and his prison hunger strike, bringing together the leaders of future Solidarity, the Gwiazdas, Krzysztof Wyszkowski, Antoni Bogdan Borusewicz, Alina Pienkowska, Lech Wałęsa and Andrzej Kołodziej among others.
Walentynowicz, SB alias "Suwnicowa" [crane operator], has been frequently detained and imprisoned for her selfless and very courageous acts of defiance, often inspired by strong convictions. After her release from internment in June 1982, Walentynowicz was rearrested for trying to memorialize the slain miners from the Wujek mine with a plaque in December 1983. In another act of defiance, Walentynowicz returned her "Hero of Socialist Labor" distinguished service medals, the brown, the silver and the gold crosses, to protest the murder of father Jerzy Popiełuszko by SB agents on October 19, 1983.
In post-communist Poland she was unfairly portrayed in the press as a moralizing retiree, mostly for her bouts with Lech Wałęsa, mainly accusing him of vanity. Walentynowicz continues to be very outspoken about the plight of the shipyard workers and the common people, forgotten by the changes. She has criticized Solidarity elites for abandoning Solidarity values and their responsibility to the common people.
Walentynowicz was born in 1929 in Rowny, Volynia province of what is today western Ukraine, and as an orphan moved to Poland with farming family that adapted her and subsequently abused her as their servant. When she couldn’t stand the abuse, she ran off to Gdańsk where like many displaced people from the borderlands, she ended up in the shipyard. Walentynowicz is a self-made woman, a single mother of her son Janusz born in 1952 until her marriage to her husband Kazimierz, and a surprisingly humble woman inspired by the teachings of John Paul II.
Walentynowicz has published her memoir, with Anna Baszanowska, Cień Przeszłości [The Shadow of the Past]. Gdańsk: 1993. Her brief biography was published underground by poet-journalist Tomasz Jastrun.
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