I didn't know him very well, but I ran. Cool place, Krakowskie Przedmieście, Dom bez Kantów (lit. „House without Edges”). There are songs to dance to, but there is no atmosphere.
The house party ends early, before dusk. I am returning to Gocław, direction: the Poniatowski Bridge, the route near the University and the Academy of Fine Arts, where, I’m hopng, in a few months I will start my studies.
Meanwhile… this is where I’m falling into a trap. An incomprehensible and disturbing one. The snow is falling in large, soft flakes, and there is a riot all around, militia, helmets, whistles.
I made it home unscathed, only to learn of the “student revolt” much belatedly. And that hostile forces…
At that time, I had a French boyfriend, admittedly of Polish roots, but not from here. Jean, a first-year French student, was inviting me to Lyon for the summer, only – a trifle really – you had to get a passport. I was refused.
My heart is bleeding, but whatever, fascinating studies await me!
Meanwhile... my friends started leaving Poland for reasons I didn’t understand. That their parents lost their jobs, that they were forced to change their address, that they don’t want to, but here’s the situation. They emigrated. I kept in touch with some of them for a while, then I lost contact.
Jean only went to Warsaw on holiday in ‘69.
Before this happened, he would have sent letters and photographs – including those from the times of the May student revolt. I still have one where a bloke is sneaking by a wall on which somebody wrote crookedly: “Que sont devenus les droits de l’homme?” (what happened to the human rights?)
It was somewhere in Paris, God knows where. Here, the man had few rights yet many duties towards the state.
Here, man had few rights, but many duties towards the state. After ‘68 the screw was tightened. You didn’t pass the studies, then go to work or to the army. You passed – you also have to pay back after the diploma. full-time! Except art studies. But not quite even that.
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I passed the ASP exam and I was supposed to get acquainted with the real job as soon as I entered. It was then, in 1969, that worker apprenticeships were introduced. Monthly, in the summer.
As a result of this post-March resolution, we got to know the smell of the forest earlier than the studio smelling of paint. Having successfully passed the exam at the Academy of Fine Arts, the lucky ones were sent to work that none of us had any idea about. We were quartered somewhere near Mrągowo, on a farm. Girls in the attic, boys nearby, in tents. We were assigned a job in a forest nursery. Every morning we were taken to where we were supposed to weed young crops. Unfortunately, we did not distinguish noble species from crap and we pulled out what was not meant to be pulled out.
The district forester came and sobbed. Then he banned us from the school premises, which was met with general enthusiasm. The rest of the working practices became a real pleasure, i.e. holidays.
A year later, future artists were assigned to apprenticeship more similar to what they were to do in the future: Puławy, Zakłady Azotowe. This time, a workers’ hotel, and the “painting” task – refreshing slogans and notices, from the terrifying black skulls on a yellow background (Do not enter! Do not touch! Danger!) to banners hanging over the road, with promises of goods available only in the Polish People’s Republic. A year later – same thing. Pulawy, Azoty. Refreshing notices. I got a private job: at the shy request of the foreman, after hours I made a sign with a dog’s face and the warning: “beware of the dog”. For his private fence.
