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Aleksander Smolar - The commandos (39/201)

163 views · Published 18 December 2018 · 1:57 · Indexed 30 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2018 · News & Politics

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To listen to more of Aleksander Smolar’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFwlxPLurqAOCrabBgGrqLA7

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation. [Listener: Vitek Tracz]

TRANSCRIPT: I can go back to a little before March – I haven’t spoken about this – there many different initiatives on the part of the opposition and among others, well, there was that group of commandos among whom I had many friends. There was Adam [Michnik], Janek Gross, Basia Toruńczyk of the younger ones, and of course Jacek Kuroń and Karol Modzelewski whom I knew well – debates were organised amongst us when it was someone’s birthday. But in any case, in this group of young assistant lecturers we felt distinct enough for us to hold our own seminars made up solely of assistant lecturers. Some of those people are well known today. Marcin was there as was Jadwiga Staniszkis. There was the sociologist, Winek Narojek, who died, then there was my friend from our student days who later became a minister in Mazowiecki’s government, Waldemar Kuczyński. There was also an outstanding essayist, writer and historian specialising in Poland’s history, Andrzej Mencwel. The only one there who was a student was Janek Gross who became famous as a result of – but I won’t go into that – and also his and Mencwel’s conflict with Adam Michnik and with the other commandos. Never mind. Anyway, that connection with Marcin and Wojtek – I met Wojtek when Jakub, his older brother whom I knew well and who was an assistant lecturer in the sociology department when I was a student, was being tried in court. I’d come every day and Wojtek would tell me about Jakub’s trial which I later relayed to Radio Free Europe.

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