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Jan Józef Lipski - 96 hours spent in detention bring on a heart attack (150/215)

84 views · Published 23 October 2017 · 2:26 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · News & Politics

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To listen to more of Jan Józef Lipski’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzWe1vPVkCbxv3jbj8zoDjS

Jan Józef Lipski (1926-1991) was a writer, literary critic, and one of Poland's best known political activists. He fought in the Warsaw Uprising, co-founded the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR), and, from 1987, re-established and led the Polish Socialist Party. [Listener: Jacek Petrycki, Marcel Łoziński; date recorded: 1989]

TRANSCRIPT: We were taken to the police station in Ochota, and that was a very difficult experience. Firstly, it was all very scary because it looked like there was going to be a very thorough ‘constitutional walk’. But it was just made to look that way to create the right sort of impression. However, an effect which wasn't the result of spiteful behaviour on the part of the police but was the unavoidable result of the ratio between the number of people detained and the amount of room in which they were kept was terrifying. I mean the overcrowding in those detention cells was beyond anything I'd imagined. It was as packed as a tramcar not just during the rush-hour, but it was as packed as it gets when there's been a 30-minute delay and no trams have arrived in that time. It seemed unbelievable that anyone else could squeeze in, and then the door would be opened and they would literally use their knees to push one more person in. This went on for 96 hours. We didn't know how to eat when we got our food because there was no way... we didn't know how we were meant to hold our plates in such a tightly packed space. We could do virtually nothing. This ended when after 96 hours I felt a very sharp pain in my chest. At that time, my health wasn't too bad, but I just couldn't cope with those 96 hours and I knew straight away what was going on. My friends raised the alarm, the police dragged me out and I found myself in hospital in Lindley Street with, fortunately, only a mild heart attack which didn't cause too much lasting damage. I think I did the right thing by reacting quickly.

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