[ Aug.2016 ] I continue talking about our Communism Tour in Warsaw.
We went into the area called Praga across the river from the centre of the city.
The poorer working class people live here historically, though quite a few artists recently moved in and they painted artistic murals.
Also new apartments and good restaurants have been built, too.
But generally speaking it still seemed to be a dangerous area.
We went to the Communism Museum in this area which used to be a factory.
Our guide, Mariusz told us about his life here.
His grandfather was a member of the Communist Party and he was the chief of agriculture in one region.
His father had a bit of rebel spirit and learned English himself.
And his family went to live in Libya for 7 or 8 years.
But because of his grandfather’s position, the family had to come back to Poland in one point.
Mariusz remembers the depressing feeling of the grey city in Poland and he missed bananas and oranges which he used to eat abundantly in Libya.
During WW2, many Polish soldiers fought alongside the British and many of them stayed on in the UK.
In 1960s, the Polish authority allowed their people to communicate with those who lived in the UK, so they started to know how people lived in the west.
Mariusz remembers that all the children wanted toys from the west.
In the museum there was a room depicting life in Communist era and another room of the propaganda in those days.
He pointed out one poster showing the friendship of Polish and Soviet people and said “this is a complete lie“.
Apparently when there was a sport match between two countries, the TV program was chopped many times, because they tried to cut out the booing of each side.
The person who changed this situation was John Paul the second, the Pope who visited Poland in 1979.
He appealed to the people for the change quoting the words from the Bible.
Encouraged by that, the Solidarity Party gained power and in the end the peaceful revolution was achieved by the election.
Mariusz clearly said “The Soviets tried to assassinate the Pope using a Turkish man, but failed“, though the responsible party of this assassination attempt has not been determined, yet.
