Jacek Kuroń - Freedom at the age of 10 (20/150) скачать в хорошем качестве

Jacek Kuroń - Freedom at the age of 10 (20/150)

To listen to more of Jacek Kuroń’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Jacek Kuroń (Social activist)   Polish activist Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004) helped to transform the political landscape of Poland. He was expelled from the communist party, arrested and incarcerated. He was also instrumental in setting up Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) and became a Minister of Labour and Social Policy. [Listener: Jacek Petrycki, Marcel Łoziński; date recorded: 1987] TRANSCRIPT: At that time, my father disappeared, he disappeared without a trace, meaning he disappeared, my father had been arrested, he was in Janowo, he escaped from Janowo and for a while there were no signs of life from him, while we ran out of the supplies that he had brought us. Around that time, my mother became very ill so I started to trade a bit myself, taking eggs from the Germans to exchange it in villages a long way from there for... I mean bread from the Germans. The Germans would sell, would exchange bread for eggs. There were numerous anti-aircraft divisions stationed in our village, and I have great memories of them. Those lads were unbelievably pleasant, and I remember that it was one of those anti-aircraft gunners who brought us the news about the invasion. He ran into my aunt's home and began shouting, 'War kaput! War kaput!' And then he told us that the Normandy invasion had begun. So I was taking from them... where we lived we used to get three or four eggs for one loaf of bread. I'd take that bread and would walk to Olszówka, Skaliste, where - my aunt lived in Zaryte - where they'd give seven or eight eggs for one loaf of bread. I brought the eggs home and took some of them to Rabka, to a buyer there called Moliński who was a friend of my father's, and I'd sell the eggs to him for some thread, and then I'd exchange this thread and those combs for milk, butter and so on and so on. I loved doing this and it made me feel very grown up. I remember a story from this time, I was going to take this thread somewhere, I had an order for this thread somewhere and I was travelling in the same train as workmen going to work. The dawn was breaking, it was totally dark, it was winter, it was dark - I was hanging onto the steps of the carriage because the train was packed, and all the while I was thinking, I'm so cold, I'm so hungry, everything is pretty awful but in all of this, there was freedom - I am completely free, and that's when I came up with this generalisation that the worse things get, the freer a person is. Of course, it isn't true, but this idea that you have to pay for this sort of freedom, that it's worth it came to me then. That's how I thought about freedom then, but after that I stopped thinking like that and obviously from then on, I was completely free. My first thoughts on freedom came when my brother Felek was born. I was riding on the tailboard of some truck going through the town and I knew that no one would be bothered about me and I thought it was a pity that my parents weren't bothered about me, but at least this way I had more freedom. The second time was when this really strong notion of freedom came to me and I thought that from then, from that moment, I was a free person. So from about the age of 10 I attained freedom and after that, these problems were not longer an issue for me.