His address in the Sejm had a lofty, almost triumphant character. John Paul II summed up the difficult Polish path from the fall of the Commonwealth of Poland in the 18th century to the Third Republic of Poland, emphasizing the great role Solidarity had played in Poland’s liberation. “We are all aware that this meeting in the Parliament would be impossible without the determined resistance offered by Polish workers in Pomerania in memorable August 1980. It would be impossible without Solidarity, which chose a path of a peaceful struggle to defend human rights and rights of the entire nation.”

The Pope also gave advice and warnings for the future: “Jointly rejoicing at the positive transformations taking place in Poland before our eyes, we should also realize that in a free society there must be values ensuring the highest good of man as a whole. The objective of any economic changes should be to shape a more humane and just world. I would like to wish Polish politicians and all people engaged in the public life to not spare efforts to build a state which takes special care of the family, human life, and education of the young generation, one that respects man’s right to work, sees issues important for the entire nation, and is sensitive to the needs of the individual, particularly of the poor and weak one.”

John Paul II’s address was strongly applauded by almost all of the assembled, from the right-wing politicians to representatives of the post-communist left. The Pope’s visit to the Parliament was the largest manifestation of joy at regained freedom after 1989 and a moment of the Holy Father’s triumph as a spiritual and political leader of the nation. The exclamation “Long live the king, the nation, and all the states” with which he finished his address and which dates back to the adoption of the Third May Constitution was a humorous verbalization of the leadership role which Karol Wojtyła had played in the life of the Polish nation since the 1978 conclave, when he was elected the head of the Catholic Church.

One of the most important events that took place during the legal activity of the union was the 1st National Congress of Delegates of Solidarity organised in the autumn of 1981 in Gdańsk (precisely on 5–10 September 1980 and 26 September – 7 October). The congress above all ended the almost one-year-long process of selecting the authorities of the union and formulated a plan for the next period of its activities. But, apart from impact on the current functioning of the organisation, the congress also resulted in the adoption of a series of documents of broader significance. One of them was the Appeal of the 1st National Congress of Delegates of Solidarity to the working men of Eastern Europe passed on 8 September. Through the document, Poles directly appealed to other nations subjugated to communism. Although it was very hard for the text to reach its addressees, it infuriated the leaders of communist parties in the Soviet bloc. Workers in the USSR were forced to take part in rallies where the Appeal was condemned. Leonid Brezhnev considered it a provocation and an attempt at promoting the idea of Solidarity in the countries of the communist bloc. Anti-solidarity rallies were also organised in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Protest letters were being sent to Poland, and the Politburo of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza, PZPR) regarded the document passed in Gdańsk as “mad provocation aimed against the allies of Poland.”

Three months later, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of PZPR and prime minister of the Polish People’s Republic, imposed martial law in Poland. Solidarity was officially liquidated, and ten thousand activists were interned. And yet the union survived in the underground and led to the fall of communism in Poland Europe in 1989.

The 21 demands (or postulates) of the Committee were drawn up during the night of August 16/17, 1980 by a team composed of Andrzej Gwiazda, Joanna Gwiazda, Bogdan Lis, Alina Pieńkowska, Lech Wałęsa, and Bogdan Borusewicz, on the basis of the demands submitted by striking crews from all over the country. The postulates were published on panels of plywood hung above the main gate of the Gdańsk Shipyard. In 2003 the panels were added to UNESCO’s ‘Memory of the World’ listing (Cultural Heritage of Humanity programme).

The opening postulate called for the establishment of free labour unions. The further postulates demanded that the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution be observed, that repressions against those persecuted for their beliefs or convictions be discontinued, that political prisoners be released, and that communist-party privileges be abolished. This was complemented by a series of economic and social demands put forth in the aim of improving society’s living conditions.

August 31, 1980 saw the signing, on the premises of the Gdańsk Shipyard, of the agreement between the Inter-Factory Strike Committee, representing more than 700 factories, and the government delegation, whereby “independent self-governing trade unions” were established and the government committed itself to implementing the major demands. The communist authorities’ acceptance of the 21 postulates led to the emergence of the Independent, Self-Governing Labour Union “Solidarity” – Poland’s Solidarność.

Poland’s communist authorities viewed the election of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła with consternation. They realised they could not refuse John Paul II (the name Wojtyła took as pope) permission to come to Poland – even though in 1966 the authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland had twice refused to allow Pope Paul VI to enter the country.

John Paul II’s visit to Poland took place from June 2-10, 1979, with hundreds of thousands of people gathered at every ceremony. The presence of the Polish Pope and his speeches, whose depth and beautiful language contrasted sharply with the poverty and hypocrisy of communist propaganda, set in motion a true revolution by giving expression to the freedom-seeking aspirations of the Poles and of the Church in Poland, both stifled under communist rule. During his first pilgrimage to Poland, the Pope visited Kraków, Częstochowa, and the museum at the former German concentration camp at Auschwitz, among many other places.

Particularly important was the first mass John Paul II celebrated, at Victory Square in downtown Warsaw (today, Marshal Józef Piłsudski Square). During that mass, the Pope delivered a homily offering a philosophical vision of Poland’s history and a programme for moral renewal. The Victory Square mass was later recognised as the symbolic beginning of the changes that led to the emergence of Solidarity in 1980 and the eventual downfall of communism. The final words of the homily reverberate in Poland to this very day: “Let thy Spirit descend! And make anew the face of Earth. Here on Earth.”

That announcement brought the entire country to a boil. On 25 June 1976 workplaces in many parts of Poland went on strike, with major protests, also on streets, staged in Płock, Ursus, and Radom. In Radom the protesters showed their discontent by, for instance, setting ablaze the building of the PZPR Provincial Committee. The authorities brutally suppressed that unrest, beating their participants during the protests and also after arrest, with the use of sophisticated torture.

Worried by the scale of those protests, the authorities cancelled the price increases and introduced sugar rationing. But that did not mean that the workers’ protests in June were deemed justified. On the contrary, they were officially condemned and their participants were called hooligans. During the subsequent weeks the Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, SB) repressed the individuals engaged in the protests; a lot of people were fired or received prison sentences.

The victims of those persecutions received financial and legal aid organized by the young people associated mostly with the scouting milieu of the Czarna Jedynka Scout Team, the ‘Commandos’ milieu, the Warsaw Club of Catholic Intelligentsia (Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej, KIK), and the Catholic University of Lublin. Deprived of means of livelihood, the arrested individual’s families could also count on their help. In September 1976 the milieus engaged in those efforts decided to establish an organization to deal with the issue of human rights violation in communist Poland. Among its leaders were Piotr Naimski and Antoni Macierewicz (the scouting milieu) and also Jacek Kuroń and Adam Michnik (the ‘Commandos’ milieu). That was how the Workers’ Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) was formed — the first overt opposition organization in Poland since the 1940s. Some of its members and co-workers, particularly printers and distributors of independent publications, operated in the underground. The KOR collected information about violations of human rights, helped the repressed, distributed underground periodicals, leaflets, and publications, and also organized protests and hunger strikes. KOR members and co-workers were often repressed — they were imprisoned, fired, beaten up by ‘unidentified perpetrators’, or surveilled by the SB. The Committee, later transformed into the KOR Social Self-defense Committee (Komitet Samoobrony Społecznej KOR), operated until 1981, when it was dissolved because its tasks were taken over by the Solidarity Independent Self-governing Trade Union (Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy „Solidarność”).

The Manifesto, together with The Testament of Fighting Poland, was published in the final issue of Rzeczpospolita Polska (The Republic of Poland), the official press organ of the Government Delegation for Poland. The document called upon the Red Army and the NKVD to leave the territory of Poland, demanded that the persecutions cease, and that democratic reforms be carried out, this to be the condition for achieving an agreement with the Soviet Union. The Testament was a dramatic summary of the five years of conspiratorial fighting, an effort which did not, however, bring Poland its expected independence.

The AK’s political situation became more complicated when in January 1944 the Red Army crossed the border of the Second Republic of Poland in pursuit of the retreating German troops. The Polish government in exile had not maintained official diplomatic relations with the USSR since the spring of 1943, when it learned the truth about the Katyn massacre. Consequently, the Home Army had acted against the Germans without consulting the Red Army. Within the framework of Operation Tempest the Home Army had organized local uprisings in the rear of the German army since January 1944. Their objective was for the AK to act as host toward the Red Army on the liberated terrains. The Soviets used the AK’s support, but when the fighting was over they disarmed the Polish detachments and arrested their commanders, while the AK soldiers were either deported to camps in the USSR or incorporated into the Polish People’s Army (Ludowe Wojsko Polskie), established by Stalin.

Initially, the capital of Poland was not included in the plans for Operation Tempest, but when the Red Army was nearing Warsaw the Home Army command decided to stage an uprising there. The Warsaw Uprising broke out on 1 August 1944 and ended 63 days later in a fiasco.

Until December 1944 Polish territory east off the River Vistula was occupied by the Red Army. On 31 December Stalin formed the puppet Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland. Faced with the new Soviet occupation the Polish government in London deemed it necessary to reorganize the underground structures, as actions against the Soviet occupier and the communist authorities, which he established, required a different strategy and different methods. The Home Army was officially dissolved on 19 January 1945. One of the reasons for that was to prohibit the Soviets from accusing the AK of hostile activity and persecuting its soldiers as members of a military organization deemed illegal by the Soviets and the communist authorities subordinate to them. Most AK soldiers were gradually demobilized. As the same time began the formation of the cadre underground structures, which were then transformed into an organization called Freedom and Independence (Wolność i Niezawisłość).

Under these circumstances, the primary aim of the Polish government-in-exile was to restore Poland as a sovereign state. They rebuilt the army, trained soldiers, and obtained equipment. At the same time, underground civilian and military structures were organised in Poland. This was far from easy – the German- and Soviet-occupied Polish territories were practically cut off from the free world, while those caught in any illegal activity under German occupation faced the death penalty or deportation to concentration camps like Auschwitz or Mauthausen-Gusen.

German policy toward the people of conquered Poland was particularly brutal and ruthless. From the very beginning of the occupation, the Germans set out to destroy the Polish intelligentsia. University lecturers, teachers, pre-war officials and political leaders were murdered or sent to concentration camps. The Soviets pursued a similar policy.

The Germans destined the Polish Jews for an even more terrible fate. They began to concentrate Jews in designated residential districts which they gradually surrounded with walls and barbed wire to create ghettos. Jews were stripped of property and their food rations were gradually reduced; many died of starvation and disease. German policy became even more brutal after the outbreak of the German-Soviet conflict in June 1941. German units murdered Jews en masse as they pushed east, occupying successive territories.

At the same time the Germans also began to make preparations for the mass extermination of the Jews of Europe. Towards the end of December 1941, the Kulmhof extermination camp began operating at Chełmno nad Nerem. In January 1942, the leaders of the Reich decided on the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’. This meant that all Jews would be murdered. In July 1942, mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to the death camp at Treblinka started. Successive extermination camps began operating, including Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and Sobibór. The Jews became even more isolated when the death penalty was introduced for providing shelter or any assistance to them.

A network of secret emissaries ensured communications between the Polish Underground State and the Polish government-in-exile. The emissaries carried documents and transmitted information and oral instructions from political and military leaders.

One such secret emissary was Jan Kozielewski, alias Jan Karski. Karski went on three dangerous missions to and from occupied Poland. His final mission, starting in the autumn of 1942, proved crucial. Before leaving Warsaw, Karski met with the leaders of Polish political parties and with Jewish leaders. At the request of the latter, he twice entered the Warsaw ghetto and travelled to the transit camp in Izbica, ascertaining the unimaginable suffering of the Jews with his own eyes.

Reports from the Polish Underground State, including Karski’s testimony, were the basis of a note which the Polish minister of foreign affairs, Edward Raczyński, addressed to the signatory states of the Declaration by the United Nations on 10 December 1942. The note is probably the first international document describing the Holocaust and calling upon members of the anti-German coalition to take joint action and bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice. Raczyński’s note was published in the form of a brochure entitled ‘The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland’ which was disseminated by Polish diplomatic missions.