Interviews with Zbigniew and Zofia Romaszewski

MS. ROMASZEWSKA: International support for Solidarity was for us, incredibly, incredibly significant. At the moment when, for instance, Lech Walesa received his Nobel [Peace] Prize [in 1983], yet we all felt – well, of course, Solidarity is who got the Nobel Prize, and somehow that it was every single one of us who received the Nobel Prize – I remember this being a huge deal at the time. And this was when my husband was still in prison, so because I was out, I had decided this was something unspeakably marvelous [Lech Walesa was the leader of the Solidarity independent trade union and served as president of Poland from 1990-1995. Solidarity was a labor union formed by Gdansk ship builders that transformed into a nationwide resistance movement].

MR. ROMASZEWSKI: That there was money being sent from the United States, say. For instance, in our case, when we were operating the Bureau of Intervention and Assistance and Human Rights. Then what we received were – well, were very decent resources from NED [the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonpartisan democracy promotion organization], which allowed us to pay the fines, to pay attorney fees.

Zbigniew Romaszewski and his wife, Zofia Romaszewska, were born in 1940 in Warsaw, Poland. Growing up during World War II and the Soviet Union’s subjugation of Eastern Europe, the couple became opponents of Poland’s communist regime and activists in various democratic opposition movements.

As children, Zbigniew and Zofia witnessed the horrors of World War II. Zbigniew and his family were sent to concentration camps, where his father died. After the war, he was raised by his mother and aunt. Zofia’s parents were part of Poland’s Home Army, an underground resistance movement against the Nazi occupation.

Zbigniew and Zofia both studied physics at the University of Warsaw. In the 1970s, following protests over rising prices by workers in the cities of Radom and Ursus, they helped to create the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR), an organization that provided monetary and material support to persecuted laborers and their families. In addition, KOR documented human rights violations committed by the regime. Zbigniew also served as a principal editor for the Madrid Report, a detailed account of human rights violations in Poland that was released during the 1980 review meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (then known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe).

In 1980, worker strikes at Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard led to the formation of Solidarity, the first independent labor union in the communist world. The movement inspired millions within Poland and transformed into a nationwide freedom movement. Zbigniew and Zofia joined Solidarity and became active members. In December 1981, the government declared martial law in an effort to crackdown on political opposition. During this time the Romaszewskis went into hiding and established Radio Solidarity, an underground radio station that broadcast independent news and information to Polish citizens until the communist regime fell.

In communism’s final days, Zbigniew was elected to the Senate as an independent candidate in the semi-free elections of 1989. The next year, Lech Walesa was elected as the country’s first post-communist president and the first fully free parliamentary elections were held in 1991. Zbigniew served in the Polish Senate through much of the following two decades, including as the deputy speaker from 2007 – 2011.

Zbigniew Romaszewski passed away on February 13, 2014.