Photo:pl.wikipedia.org
This year we marked the 42nd anniversary of the founding of Solidarity, the vanguard movement, which paved the way for democracy in the former communist world. December 12-13, the date of declaration of martial law in Poland in 1981, is a fitting moment to remember all those who fell in the long struggle. The following song identified with Solidarity is our in memoriam.
The Ballad of Janek Wiśniewski
JANEK WIŚNIEWSKI FELL
[original title: Janek Wisniewski padł]
Boys from Grabowek, boys from Chylonia
Today the pigs fired on us
The brave stood their ground, aimed their stones well
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Laid out on a door carried down Swietojanska
Against the pigs, against the tanks
Boys of the shipyards, revenge your brother!
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Gas blankets swell, torpedoes blow
workers are taking a heavy toll
children are falling, old men and women
Janek Wisniewski fell…
One of them wounded, the other dead
December dawn comes drenched in blood
The regime’s murdering workers
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Boys from the shipyards of Gdansk and Gdynia
You can go home now, the battle’s over
The world’s heard and not a word
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Don’t cry oh, mothers, it’s not for nothing
Above the shipyard a flag of black ribbons
For bread, for freedom, for a new Poland
Janek Wisniewski fell…
[added during martial law]
Boys from Grabowek, boys from Chylonia
The pigs again fired on us
And once more in somber December
Janek Wisniewski fell…
The earth blood-stained by the hand of Caine
shaming the memory of monuments of pain
for the holy crosses pinned with an anchor
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Mother in mouming, gaping wound’s stare
Frozen Niobe her hearts open bare
Her frozen gaze is because in vain
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Don’t cry oh mothers, when you hear
That just as yesterday, the third strike nears
For a free union once and for all
Janek Wisniewski fell…
Let the bells toll in horror
for that final struggle, for that final hour
for hunger, for war–for Poland’s dead
we’ll weave a rope. of hemp.
Photo.polskieradio.pl
December 13th
Mirosław Krupinski
December thirteenth, soon all neighbors
will Christmas carols sing at tables.
The guilty, sixteen years past murderer,
to make last confession will be able.
From endless running he’ll resign
and, when his conscience will take over,
then at last his letter will be signed
with bullet, waiting in revolver.
And unknown person in his name
will flowers put on victims graves,
asking forgiveness for those years
they lost, before the freedom came…
The poem was written in December 1997, on the sixteenth anniversary of December 1981.
Trzynasty grudnia.
Trzynasty grudnia. Ludzie godni
kolędy wkrótce śpiewać będą.
Zbrodniarz, szesnaście lat po zbrodni,
przedłoży spowiedź nad kolęda.
Nie mogąc karze już umykać,
zapragnie winę wyznać szczerze
i pożegnalny list podpisać
kulą, co czeka w rewolwerze.
A ktoś nieznany, z jego woli,
na grobach ofiar złoży kwiaty
z przeprosinami, że przed laty
wolności dążyć nie pozwolił…
