You are here
Home > News > They were shot at, they were tortured. Przemyk and others

They were shot at, they were tortured. Przemyk and others

The PRL “people’s power” liked to show the young generation that they had control over everyone and that the best way to show their authority was physical violence. The militia happily reached for it in serious and trivial matters, so beating up a young man “to make an example” was not something unusual. As well as killing.

Forty years ago, on May 14th 1983, just three days before his nineteenth birthday, Grzegorz Przemyk died in a Warsaw hospital. Severe abdominal injuries were the main reason for his death. Fatal injuries resulted from a brutal beating by three militiamen at the Militia Station on Jesuit Street.

Two days earlier, on May 12, Grzegorz Przemyk was detained in Warsaw’s Castle Square, where together with his fellow students, he celebrated passing High School “Matura” exams. The militiamen decided that the youth behaved too casually, and the Polish People’s Republic authorities did not like it. The detainees were taken to the local Old Town Militia Station, where they got severely beaten. After being released home, Grzegorz Przemyk felt sick with terrible pain in his abdominal area. The ambulance took him to the Emergency Medical Services station on Hoża Street.

Up till now, the exact course of events has not been established. “People’s power” always liked to show the young generation that they had control over everyone, and the best way to demonstrate this power was physical violence. The militia willingly reached for it in serious and trivial matters, so beating up a young man “to make an example” was not uncommon.

But Grzegorz Przemyk was the son of the opposition poet Barbara Sadowska. Several days earlier, he and his mother were detained for 48 hours. And at that time, his mother was also a victim of beatings. Even Mieczysław Rakowski – then one of the closest people in Wojciech Jaruzelski’s circle – made records in his notebook and did not exclude such a possibility that the beating could have been a warning measure for those who were too defiant.

It was set right from the very beginning that the Polish People’s Republic authorities would turn the tortured victim into a rebellious ringleader and then look for someone to blame elsewhere. To the rules, the emergency crew must have been the offenders since they took Przemyk to the EMS centre. Therefore, in 1984 they were found guilty and convicted in a fabricated trial. Few people believed in a version and course of events prepared under the supervision of the head of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, General Czesław Kiszczak, and proclaimed by Jerzy Urban, the propaganda mouthpiece of Jaruzelski’s junta. However, this faked show trial and pressure ruined many people’s lives.

Click here to read the full article.

By Grzegorz Sieczkowski

Translated by Katarzyna Chocian

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Top