The Birth of Poland's Free Trade Union Solidarity (475)

One morning in August 1980, the noise of 10,000 shipyard workers suddenly stopped. Something extraordinary was happening.

As a young shipbuilding student, Bogdan finds himself inside Gdańsk’s Lenin Shipyard as workers down tools and the movement that will become Solidarity begins to take shape. What follows is a remarkable journey through the final decade of communist Poland.

Bogdan recalls student occupation strikes, the shock of martial law, encounters with riot police, and his unconventional escape from military conscription by becoming a teacher. He describes his first intoxicating glimpse of the West in Vienna and West Berlin, where two worlds exist just metres apart across the Berlin Wall.

Then, in the summer of 1989, Bogdan and his wife board a flight for Canada with borrowed money, a few possessions and no certainty about what comes next.

This is a deeply personal story of resistance, freedom and starting again.

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Curated episode extras⁠ ⁠⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/episode475⁠⁠

⁠ Bogdan's website & other book purchase options https://www.bogdanmarzewski.com/book

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