Selected text
At university [Jagiellonian University] [14], there was an organization called Zycie Akademickie [15], and a socialist organization, the ZNMS [16]. We had discussion meetings, because, apart from your own courses, you attended all other interesting lectures. The fellow students would gather, we had our own premises. The University had exterritorial status; the police wasn't allowed to enter. Nor did they ever arrest anyone. And various speakers came to deliver lectures. Meetings were organized once a week together by Zycie and the ZNMS, on subjects literary, political, whatever we found interesting.
One of the first speakers I remember was Cyrankiewicz [17]. Wonderful, marvelous, handsome, lean, blond [Editor's note: everyone remembers him bald from the photographs]. He spoke beautiful Polish. He was from the ZNMS. We also invited writers, men of letters. One day, for instance, we were visited by Kruczkowski [Leon Kruczkowski (1900-1962): chemist, left- leaning writer and essayist]. But then there would come the endeks [18], the kind of boys that you'll also find in Poland these days [see Mlodziez Wszechpolska] [19]... the ZPND and the Youth Legion [far-right youth organizations]... and they would start the 'Zwischenrufe' [German for 'interrupting shouts'], trying to break up the meeting, prevent the debate. They would also throw rotten eggs at the speaker to force him to leave. That's what they did with Kruczkowski. The meeting had to be aborted. They were a militia, members of the fraternities, student corporations [20].
One of the first speakers I remember was Cyrankiewicz [17]. Wonderful, marvelous, handsome, lean, blond [Editor's note: everyone remembers him bald from the photographs]. He spoke beautiful Polish. He was from the ZNMS. We also invited writers, men of letters. One day, for instance, we were visited by Kruczkowski [Leon Kruczkowski (1900-1962): chemist, left- leaning writer and essayist]. But then there would come the endeks [18], the kind of boys that you'll also find in Poland these days [see Mlodziez Wszechpolska] [19]... the ZPND and the Youth Legion [far-right youth organizations]... and they would start the 'Zwischenrufe' [German for 'interrupting shouts'], trying to break up the meeting, prevent the debate. They would also throw rotten eggs at the speaker to force him to leave. That's what they did with Kruczkowski. The meeting had to be aborted. They were a militia, members of the fraternities, student corporations [20].
Period
Interview
Apolonia Starzec