Interviews behind
the Iron
Curtain
from the Late 80s

Partners

The Other Europe is the name of a six-part series, shot in 1987–1988 in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, especially Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Poland and Romania. It was produced for the British Channel Four by the former company Panoptic. The author and guide through the series is the political scientist and publicist Jacques Rupnik. It was directed by Tom Roberts and produced by Nick Fraser. Jacques Rupnik published a book under the same title to accompany the series. The Prague-based Václav Havel Library received an acquisition from the British Imperial War Museum which is extraordinary both in terms of its contents and scope: the complete footage shot for the series. The National Film Archive in Prague has undertaken to digitise it.

Other partners who are to prepare their language versions and subtitles are the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk, Poland; the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, the National Memory Institute in Bratislava and Gedenkstätte Bautzner Straße in Dresden. The film materials contain authentic testimonies of representatives of the anti-communist opposition both at home and in exile, representatives of the party nomenclature, culture and completely unknown citizens describing the reality of life behind the Iron Curtain in the latter half of the 1980s. The people do not recount their memories on camera but speak of the everyday life they lived, with no idea that the Iron Curtain would fall in a couple of years. The historic authenticity is emphasized by the extraordinarily broad international context.

Special thanks to Imperial War Museum, Jacques Rupnik, Tom Roberts and Nick Fraser.
Other recordings will be added here in the following months once they have been processed, ultimately making up a total of around 100 videos

Interviews

Czechoslovakia Hungary East Germany Poland Romania

Václav Havel

Václav Havel20. 1. 1988 | Prague, Czech Republic

Playwright, writer, essayist and thinker, human rights advocate, one of the first three spokesmen of Charter 77, a leading figure in the Czechoslovak opposition to totalitarian communist power and a political prisoner. In November 1989, the leader...

Gábor Demszky

Gábor Demszky10. 12. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Gábor Demszky was born in Budapest, on August 4, 1952. His parents were economists; his sister Anna is a special education teacher. He married five times, and is a father of four. He graduated from Kafka Margit High School in 1970, and in the...

Zdena Tominová

Zdena Tominová21. 7. 1988 | London, United Kingdom

A Czech writer, translator, dissident, after the arrest of members of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted in 1979 also one of the speakers of Charter 77. As a result of persecution she and her entire family were forced to...

Milan Šimečka

Milan Šimečka20. 1. 1988 | Prague, Czechoslovakia

Czech and Slovak philosopher and literary reviewer. He graduated in Czech and Russian literature from the Faculty of Arts in Brno in 1953 and worked as an assistant at the Comenius University in Bratislava, where he lectured in Marxist philosophy at...

Jiří Němec

Jiří Němec1. 1. 1988 | Vienna, Austria

A Czech Christian philosopher, clinical psychologist, translator, editor, initiator and signatory of Charter 77, the husband of Charter 77 signatory Dana Němcová, with whom he had seven children. Having begun his studies at the Medical Faculty of...

Heda Margolius Kovály

Heda Margolius Kovály10. 1. 1988 | New York, USA

Czech translator and writer. At the beginning of the Nazi occupation, she married the lawyer Rudolf Margolius, with whom she was deported to the Lodz ghetto in 1941 and further to the Nazi extermination camps. It was a miracle that they both...

György Konrád

György Konrád12. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

György Konrád was born on April 2, 1933 in Debrecen but spent the first eleven years of his life in Berettyóújfalu. His father was a wealthy iron trader, his mother came from a middle-class Jewish family in Nagyvárad, his sister Éva is a biologist...

Elemér Hankiss

Elemér Hankiss2. 7. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Elemér Hankiss was born May 4, 1928 in Debrecen. His father, János Hankiss was a literary historian and professor at the University of Debrecen. He graduated from Eötvös Loránd University as an Eötvös College student in 1950, he majored in English...

Dénes Csengey

Dénes Csengey10. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Dénes Csengey was born on January 24, 1953 in Szekszárd. He was a writer, a poet, and a politician, who died young at the age of 38 in Budapest on April 8, 1991. He is known as one of the emblematic figures of the regime change in Hungary. He...

Monika Maron

Monika Maron25. 9. 1987 | Berlin, Germany

Monika Maron was born on June 3, 1941 in Berlin. Her maternal grandfather was a Polish Jew who had converted to Baptism, who moved from Lodz to Berlin with his wife, a Polish Catholic who had also converted to Baptism, in 1907 in order to build a...

Lech Wałęsa

Lech Wałęsa18. 10. 1987 | Gdańsk, Poland

Lech Wałęsa (born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, a leading figure in the Polish opposition against the totalitarian communist power and a political prisoner during martial law, the leader of Solidarity Trade Union...

Jiří Menzel

Jiří Menzel18. 1. 1988 | Prague, Czechoslovakia

Film director, actor and writer He graduated from the Film School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. His very first feature film made him one of the most important representatives of Czechoslovakia’s New Wave of film in the 1960s. Closely...

Lutz Rathenow

Lutz RathenowBerlin, Germany

Lutz Rathenow was born in Jena in 1952. From 1973 he studied German philology and history in Jena. He was the founder and leader of the opposition working group "Literature in Jena", which was banned in 1975. In connection with the expatriation of...

Jiří Sláma

Jiří Sláma28. 1. 1988 | Munich, Germany

Economist After finishing grammar school, he enrolled at the University of Industry and Chemical Technology in Brno (1945–1949), from where he switched to the Faculty of Economics at the University of Political and Economic Sciences in Prague...

Jacek Woźniakowski

Jacek Woźniakowski?

Jacek Woźniakowski (1920 - 2012) is a Polish art historian, journalist, writer, publisher, curator, translator of literature, a social and political activist, soldier during World War II in Polish Home Army, one of the leading figures in...

Sára Karig

Sára Karig28. 6. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Sára Karig was born in Baja on 13 June 1914 and died in Budapest on 2 February 1999. Her parents were teachers raising three children. Her mother laid great emphasis on her children’s progressive education. Sára Karig attended schools in Baja,...

Anna Heinrich

Anna Heinrich13. 10. 1987 | Kazincbarcika, Hungary

Mrs. Anna Heinrich, a widow from Kazincbarcika, started a hunger strike on Christmas Eve of 1981 to protest against social injustices, the debauchery of the rich, and the destitution of the poor. She hung a poster in her window demanding pay...

Miklós Tamás Gáspár

Miklós Tamás Gáspár12. 11. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Miklós Tamás Gáspár, Hungarian philosopher, political commentator / public intellectual, was born on 28 November 1948 in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca). He married twice and had four children. His father, Tamás Gáspár, was a Transylvanian-born...

László Antal

László Antal2. 7. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

László Antal, a world-renowned economist, was born on 22 January 1943, and died on 26 September 2008 in Budapest. He graduated from the Karl Marx University of Economics in 1967 with a degree in finance. After graduating, he began his career in the...

János Berecz

János Berecz15. 6. 1988 | Budapest, Hungary

János Berecz, Hungarian politician, was born on 18 September 1930 in Ibrány, a small town in Szabolcs County. He married twice and had three children from his first marriage. His parents were poor peasants farming on one or two acres. He completed...

Sándor Demján

Sándor Demján2. 7. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Sándor Demján, businessman and entrepreneur, was born on 14 May 1943, in Börvely, a town close to the Hungarian border, today part of Romania, and died in Budapest on 26 March 2018, at the age of 75. His father disappeared during the Second World...

Bronisław Geremek

Bronisław Geremek30. 10. 1987 | ?

Bronisław Geremek (1932 - 2008) is a Polish historian, a statesman, one of the leading figures in the Polish opposition against the totalitarian communist power and a political prisoner during martial law, expert and adviser of Solidarity...

Jana Stárková

Jana Stárková27. 1. 1988 | Vienna, Austria

Historian, translator, publicist A graduate in History and Slavic Studies from the University of Vienna (Dr. phil.), she worked for the Czech section of Radio Beijing (1979–1981), was a co-founder of the Helsinki International Federation for Human...

Bogdan Lis

Bogdan Lis30. 11. 1986 | ?

Bogdan Lis (born November 10, 1952) is a Polish politician, industrial equipment mechanic, Inter-factory Striking Committee member, Solidarity activist, an organiser of Polish underground during the martial law period, Round Table Talks...

Agnieszka Wróblewska

Agnieszka Wróblewska30. 11. 1999 | ?

Agnieszka Wróblewska (born 16 December 1933) - journalist, studied at Warsaw University. In 1956-1981 a member of Polish communist party PZPR, she joined after October 1956 as a student and resigned in protest against the introduction of martial law...

Jan Krčmář

Jan Krčmář26. 1. 1988 | Vienna, Austria

Journalist and translator Born in Cologne into the family of a Czechoslovak diplomat, he completed primary and secondary school in London as his father had been transferred to Great Britain in 1936. After returning to Prague in 1947, he continued at...

Andrzej Wajda

Andrzej Wajda20. 5. 1988 | Paris, France

Andrzej Witold Wajda (6 March 1926 –  9 October 2016) - Polish film and theatre director, Oscar laureate (2000), one of the creators of the "Polish Film School". President of Polish Filmmakers Association (1978-83). He supported Solidarity...

Jacek Jan Kuroń

Jacek Jan Kuroń24. 5. 1987 | ?

Jacek Jan Kuroń (3 March 1934 – 17 June 2004) - Polish politician, educator and historian, in People’s Republic of Poland period activist of so-called “Red Scouting,” one of the leading figures in the Polish opposition against the totalitarian...

Vladimir Farkas

Vladimir Farkas16. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Vladimir Farkas, one of the chief officers of the ÁVH (State Protection Authority) in the 1950s, was born in Kassa (today Košice), then part of Czechoslovakia, on 12 August 1925, and died in Budapest, on 13 September 2002. He received his first name...

Bognár Szabolcs

Bognár Szabolcs27. 6. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Szabolcs Bognár, domestic relations attorney and social policy expert, was born on 25 June 1947 and died on 23 June 1999 in Budapest. His father, István Bognár, was a mechanical engineer, his mother, Amália Tóth, a piano teacher. He had two...

András Hegedüs

András Hegedüs11. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

András Hegedüs, politician, sociologist, was born on 31 October 1922 in Szilsárkány, in a peasant family with a medium-size land, and died on 23 October 1999 in Budapest. He lost his father at an early age and his mother took care of him and his...

Charles Taylor Coutts

Charles Taylor Coutts28. 6. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Charles Coutts, a Scottish journalist, was born in Peterculter, a suburb of Aberdeen, on 8 January 1921, and died in Budapest, on 6 April 2000. As a British soldier, he was taken prisoner of war in Japan during World War II, spending more than three...

Király Béla

Király Béla1. 10. 1988 | Budapest, Hungary

Béla Király, general staff officer, military historian and politician was born in Kaposvár in 1912 and died in Budapest on 4 July 2009. His father was a civil servant at MÁV (Hungarian State Railways), his mother a post office employee, and he had...

Morvai Ferenc

Morvai Ferenc26. 6. 1987 | Gyöngyös, Hungary

Ferenc Morvai, businessman, inventor and politician, was born on October 22, 1946 in Nagyréde. His parents were poor farmers, taking care of him and his three brothers. He had three children from two marriages. He finished primary school in...

Jancsó Miklós

Jancsó Miklós28. 6. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Miklós Jancsó, two-time Kossuth Prize and Béla Balázs Award winner film director, was born on 27 September 1921 in Vác and died on 31 January 2014 in Budapest, at the age of 92. He was married three times, and had two sons and a daughter. His family...

Josef Škvorecký

Josef Škvorecký10. 1. 1988 | New York, USA

Writer, essayist, translator and publisher of exile literature Born in Náchod, East Bohemia, he graduated in philosophy and English from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. He obtained his PhD degree for his dissertation entitled Thomas Paine...

Eduard Goldstücker

Eduard Goldstücker12. 11. 1987 | Central Europe

Literary historian, writer, translator, pedagogue and politician Born in Slovakia, he graduated in German and German literature from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. During his studies he entered the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia....

Zdeněk Mlynář

Zdeněk Mlynář1. 1. 1988 | Vienna, Austria

Politician, lawyer, political scientist and teacher As a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Lomonosov University in Moscow and worked at the Institute of State and Law of the Czechoslovak Academy...

Jan Vladislav

Jan Vladislav31. 1. 1988 | Castle Schwarzenberg, Scheinfeld, Germany

Poet and translator from English, French, German, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian and, with assistance, also from Japanese and Chinese. He studied comparative literature at Charles University but was expelled from his course after the Communists seized...

Ferenc Tóth

Ferenc Tóth30. 11. 1999 | Budapest, Hungary

At the beginning of May 1988, Lieutenant Colonel Ferenc Tóth, the head of the BRFK's (Budapest Metropolitan Police) subdivision and head of the Budapest Economic Police, was deprived of his rank by the Minister of Interior and excluded from the...

Elek Nagy

Elek Nagy11. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

Elek Nagy was born in 1926. He began his secondary school studies at the Upper Commercial School in Győr. As a high school student he received the so-called ‘SAS’ military conscription in May 1944. He did not participate in the fighting but was...

Pál Romány

Pál Romány14. 10. 1987 | ?

Pál Romány, former Minister of Agriculture and university professor, was born on 17 November 1929 in Szajol and died on 16 December 2019 in Budapest. He was the fifth child in his family, his father was a control car operator and his mother a...

Róbert Gábor

Róbert Gábor30. 11. 1999 | Washington, D.C., USA

Róbert Gábor, social democrat politician, was born in 1919 and died on 16 October 2017 in Washington, D.C. He first encountered politics at the age of 20, in 1939, when he joined the Social Democratic Party and the Trade Union Movement. He wrote...

Gábor Fodor

Gábor Fodor15. 6. 1988 | Budapest, Hungary

Gábor Fodor, lawyer, politician, former minister, was born on 27 September 1962 in Gyöngyös. His father Árpád Fodor worked as a judge and later as a lawyer, his mother Klára Révfalvi worked for the Gyöngyös City Council, retiring as a chief...

Vilém Bernard

Vilém Bernard12. 11. 1987 | Central Europe

Politician, an MP for the Social Democratic Party and the Chairman of the Czechoslovak Social Democracy-in-Exile He graduated from Charles University with a degree in Law and was involved in the students’ social democratic groups. After the Nazis...

Jiří Gruša

Jiří Gruša31. 1. 1988 | Scheinfeld, Germany

Writer and poet, translator, diplomat and politician He studied Czech language, philosophy and history. In the 1960s he was one of the founders of Tvář [Face] magazine and contributed to the establishment of Sešity pro mladou generaci [Workbooks for...

    Jürgen Fuchs

    Jürgen Fuchs29. 9. 1987 | West Berlin, Germany

    Jürgen Fuchs was born on 19 December 1950 in Reichenbach in Vogtland; he died on 9 May 1999 in Berlin. Fuchs was a German writer, civil rights activist and representative of the opposition in the GDR, who continued to be observed by the Stasi in the...

    Klaus Gysi

    Klaus Gysi25. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Klaus Gysi was born in Neukölln on March 3, 1912; he died in Berlin on March 6, 1999. He was active in the communist resistance to National Socialism, served as Minister of Culture from 1966 to 1973, and was the GDR's State Secretary for Church...

    Claus Hammel

    Claus Hammel28. 9. 1987 | East Germany

    Claus Hammel was born on December 4, 1932 in Parchim; he died on April 12, 1990 in Ahrenshoop. Hammel was a German playwright. Claus Hammel was the son of a master saddler. The family lived in Parchim until 1934 and then moved to Demmin, where Claus...

    Heinz Hümmler

    Heinz Hümmler28. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Heinz Hümmler was born in March 1929; Hümmler was Prorector for Education and Training at the Academy of Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED until 1984, then Prorector for Research.

    Jürgen Kuczynski

    Jürgen Kuczynski25. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Jürgen Kuczynski was born in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal) on 17 September 1904; he died in Berlin on 6 August 1997. Kuczynski was a German economic historian and economist. Jürgen Kuczynski was born into a wealthy Jewish family as one of six children....

    Manfred Stolpe

    Manfred Stolpe28. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Manfred Stolpe was born in Stettin on May 16, 1936; he died in Potsdam on December 29, 2019. Stolpe was a German church lawyer and politician (SPD). He was the Minister President of the state of Brandenburg from 1990 to 2002 and the Federal Minister...

    Wolfgang Leonhard

    Wolfgang LeonhardMunich, West Germany

    Wolfgang Leonhard was born on April 16, 1921 in Vienna as Wladimir Leonhard (since 1945 he bore the first name Wolfgang); he died on August 17, 2014. Leonhard was a German historian and publicist. His communist-minded mother emigrated with him to...

    Karl Eduard von Schnitzler

    Karl Eduard von Schnitzler23. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Karl-Eduard Richard Arthur von Schnitzler was born on 28 April 1918 in Dahlem; he died on 20 September 2001 in Zeuthen. Schnitzler was a German journalist. During the Second World War, as a soldier in the Wehrmacht, he was transferred to the...

    Rainer Eppelmann

    Rainer Eppelmann27. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Rainer Eppelmann was born on 12 February 1943 in Berlin. Eppelmann is a German Protestant pastor, civil rights activist and politician (DA, CDU). After gaining notoriety within the GDR as an oppositionist, he was Minister for Disarmament and Defence...

    Stefan Heym

    Stefan Heym28. 9. 1987 | Berlin, East Germany

    Stefan Heym was born in Chemnitz, Germany, on April 10, 1913; he died in En Bokek, Israel, on December 16, 2001. Heym was a German writer and one of the most important writers of the GDR. From 1994 to 1995 he was a member of the PDS in the 13th...

    Leszek Kołakowski

    Leszek Kołakowski12. 11. 1987 | ?

    Leszek Kołakowski (23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a very prominent Polish philosopher and historian of ideas, writer, prominent scholar at Warsaw University and Oxford, oppositionist to the totalitarian Communist regime, political emigrant...

    Leszek Henryk Balcerowicz

    Leszek Henryk Balcerowicz21. 5. 1987 | ?

    Leszek Henryk Balcerowicz (born 19 January 1947) - Polish politician, professor of economy and lecturer. He was one of Solidarity economic experts.  In free Poland: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finances in the government of Tadeusz...

    Wolfgang Templin

    Wolfgang Templin27. 6. 1987 | ?

    Wolfgang Templin was born in Jena on 25 November 1948. Templin is a German GDR civil rights activist and publicist. Templin grew up in the GDR and, after graduating from high school in 1965, initially began an apprenticeship as a book printer, which...

    Józef Czyrek

    Józef Czyrek31. 10. 1987 | Warsaw, Poland

    Józef Czyrek (20 July 1928, 3 June 2013) - Polish economist, communist activist, peasants’ movement activist (1948 - 1952), Minister of Foreign Affairs from August 24, 1980 to July 21, 1982, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of...

    Wiesław Górnicki

    Wiesław Górnicki20. 5. 1987 | Warsaw, Poland

    Zdzisław Rurarz (24 February 1930 - 21 January 2007) - Polish economist, diplomat, university lecturer, Ambassador of the Polish People's Republic in Japan. 1971 - 1972 one of Edward Gierek's economic advisers. 1973 - 1976 Special Adviser to the...

    Zdzisław Rurarz

    Zdzisław RurarzWashington, D.C., USA

    Zdzisław Rurarz (24 February 1930 - 21 January 2007) - Polish economist, diplomat, university lecturer, Ambassador of the Polish People's Republic in Japan. 1971 - 1972 one of Edward Gierek's economic advisers. 1973 - 1976 Special Adviser to the...

    Vojtěch Jasný

    Vojtěch Jasný9. 1. 1988 | New York, USA

    Film director, script writer and pedagogue He graduated from the Film Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 1951. He and his classmate Karel Kachyňa worked first for Czechoslovak Army Film, where they made several documentaries on...

    Karel Kaplan

    Karel Kaplan28. 1. 1988 | Munich, Germany

    Historian specialising in the post-war history of Czechoslovakia After the war, he entered the Communist Party, completed distance courses at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (ÚV KSČ)...

    Ota Šik

    Ota Šik1. 1. 1988 | Munich, West Germany

    Economist, politician, commentator and pedagogue At first he began to study painting, which remained his lifelong hobby. During World War Two he joined the illegal Communist Party and in 1941–1945 was imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp....

    István Tilinkó

    István Tilinkó23. 6. 1987 | ?

    István Tilinkó, a Hungarian member of the working class was expelled from the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party in the late eighties for drunk driving. He claimed that the exclusion was unfair because he received his fine, but the police...

    Péter Rényi

    Péter Rényi16. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

    Péter Rényi, Hungarian journalist, critic and retired deputy editor-in-chief of Népszabadság [Liberty of the People], was born in Temesvár (today Timișoara) on 15 September 1920 and died in Budapest on 8 October 2002. His original profession was...

    Ervin Hollós

    Ervin Hollós28. 6. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

    Ervin Hollós, state security officer, author of party-state propaganda materials, university professor, was born on 25 October 1923 in Budapest and died on 10 October 2008 in Budapest. His father, Leó Sámuel Holzschlag, was a master hairdresser, his...

    Sándor Nagy

    Sándor Nagy23. 6. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

    He was born in 1946. In the autumn of 1989, he was on the list of congress candidates for the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party Congress held in October, compiled by the Szeged City Party Committee. Sándor Nagy was Secretary of the Party Committee...

    Zsigmond Járai

    Zsigmond Járai9. 10. 1987 | Budapest, Hungary

    Zsigmond Járai, economist, banker, Minister of Finance, former Governor of the Hungarian National Bank of Hungary, was born in Biharkeresztes on 29 December 1951. His father, Antal Járai, was the founder and manager of a local timber and...

    Zoltán Nyeste

    Zoltán Nyeste1. 9. 1988 | Budapest, Hungary

    Zoltán Nyeste, engineer, writer and political prisoner, was born in Mezőtelki (today Telechiu), Bihor County, Romania, on 23 August 1922 and died in Nadap, near Lake Velence, on 2 October 2001. He came from a family of Protestant pastors, his father...

    Andrzej Wróblewski

    Andrzej Wróblewski19. 5. 1987 | ?

    Andrzej Wróblewski (born July 26, 1922 - died March 20, 2002) - Polish journalist, linguist, publicist, popularizer of knowledge about the Polish language. During World War II he was an underground activist, fought in Home Army units and was...

    Jan Winiecki

    Jan Winiecki18. 5. 1987 | ?

    Jan Winiecki (born June 21, 1938 - died June 7, 2016) - Polish economist, PhD in economics, university teacher, member of the Monetary Policy Council in the 2010-2016 term. From 1964 to 1982 he was a member of the Polish United Workers' Party...

    Mieczysław Rakowski

    Mieczysław Rakowski6. 3. 1987 | ?

    Mieczysław Rakowski (born December 1, 1926 - died November 8, 2008) - Polish communist politician, Deputy Prime Minister in Wojciech Jaruzelski's government (1981-1985), the last First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers'...

    Jerzy Morawski

    Jerzy Morawski?

    Jerzy Morawski ( born on March 6, 1932, – died February 4, 2008) - Polish communist politican, one of the leading figures in the Polish communist party PZPR Central Committee in 1955-1960, a member of the PZPR Central Committee Political Office in...

    Krzysztof Kieślowski

    Krzysztof Kieślowski30. 11. 1999 | ?

    Krzysztof Kieślowski (born June 27, 1941 - died March 13, 1996) - Polish film director and writer, member of Polish Filmmakers Association and its deputy President 1978-1981. Since 1990 honorary member of the British Film Institute, since 1995...

    Jan Bisztyga

    Jan Bisztyga2. 6. 1987 | ?

    Jan Bisztyga (born January 19, 1933) - Polish intelligence officer, civil servant, diplomat and party functionary. Since 1953 a member of the Polish United Workers' Party. A long-time employee of the intelligence service, who, among other things,...

    Andrzej Potocki

    Andrzej Potocki28. 5. 1987 | ?

    Andrzej Potocki (ur. 25 sierpnia 1920, zm. 22 października 1995) – polski działacz katolicki, prezes Klubu Inteligencji Katolickiej w Krakowie (1978-1995), tłumacz. 23 sierpnia 1980 roku dołączył do apelu 64 uczonych, pisarzy i publicystów do władz...

    Stanislaw Handzlik & Maciej Mach

    Stanislaw Handzlik & Maciej Mach30. 5. 1989 | ?

    Stanislaw Handzlik (born January 21, 1943) - Polish worker, trade unionist and local government activist, an oppositionist during the Polish People's Republic, MP in the first term. In 1980 he joined the Solidarity movement and was one of the union...

    Kazimierz Jancarz

    Kazimierz Jancarz?

    Kazimierz Jancarz (born December 9, 1947, died March 25, 1993) - Polish Catholic priest, an opposition activist in Polish People's Republic. After martial law was declared in Poland, Father Jancarz became the workers' chaplain. He organized help for...

    Ota Ulč

    Ota Ulč10. 1. 1988 | New York, USA

    Lawyer, political scientist and writer After finishing grammar school, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague, from where he graduated in 1953. During his two-year military service, he was assigned to the Auxiliary...

    Ion Mihai Pacepa

    Ion Mihai Pacepa12. 1. 1988 | ?

    Ion Mihai Pacepa was a general in the Romanian communist secret police, Securitate, which he joined in 1951. He acted as a top counselor for the President Nicolae Ceaușescu and he was deputy of the head of the External Intelligence Service. In 1956...

      Antonín J. Liehm

      Antonín J. Liehm?

      Literary and film reviewer, translator and journalist After grammar school, he graduated from the Political and Social University in 1949. After the war, he contributed to the Kulturní politika [Cultural Policy] weekly, which was later banned. In...

      Vilém Prečan

      Vilém Prečan31. 1. 1988 | Scheinfeld, Germany

      Vilém Prečan (1933), prof., PhDr., CSc. A graduate of the University of Political and Economic Sciences, he addressed the topic of the Slovak National Uprising and relations between the Czechs and Slovaks in the 1940s when he worked at the...

      Părintele Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa

      Părintele Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa13. 1. 1988 | Washington, D.C., USA

      Romanian priest and dissident, he served 21 years in prison during communism, according to his own testimony. He was incarcerated between 1948-1964 and again between 1979-1984. He also spent a year under house arrest together with his...

      Vladimir Tismăneanu

      Vladimir TismăneanuWashington, D.C., USA

      Romanian and American political scientist, professor of politics,president of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania (2006–2007), chair of the editorial committee (2004-2008) and editor (1998-2004) ) of...