Grudziądz – Solidarity Memorial

Located on ul. Józefa Wybickiego, in front of a prison, is a memorial to the Solidarity movement. I haven’t been able to ascertain why it’s placed where it is, although the town did have a role in the 1970s in the creation of what was to become Solidarity in the 1980s.

This means August 1989, which is when Solidarity took over part of Government, so I assume that the two are linked.

A memorial to Anna Walentynowicz, one of the founders of Solidarity who was imprisoned for a period in the prison behind (which is possibly why the main memorial is here). She died in 2010 and her dismissal from the Lenin Shipyard was one of the causes of the mass strikes which hit Poland in 1980.

Underneath is a memorial to Edmund Zadrożyński, a local trade union activist who stood up the authorities when it was highly dangerous to do so. He spent some of his final years in prison and died in Grudziądz on 22 November 1982.

An information board, with a few of the faces covered over with dirt. Politics is a dirty business….