NEW POLISH WRITING
503
by years in prison, you also saw people rising from their knees , peo–
ple thirsting for true and free speech, people receiving free speech
like communion, people with lit-up faces and eyes full of trust-all
this you saw, and you know it canno t be trampled underfoot and
destroyed by tanks. And you will not see such faces on the boule–
vards of Paris....
I hope I have made clear my point of view. It is plain from what
I have written that I have no antiemigration phobia. It was not pho–
bia that dictated to me these remarks. Nor was it patriotic blindness.
Nor, finally, was it courage that dictated to me the choice of prison
rather than that of exile.
If
anything, it was fear. Fear of losing my
face while protecting my head .
WHY YOU ARE NOT SIGNING
The following text, written under a pseudonym, was smuggled out of
Bialoleka prison near JiI.'llrsaw. It appeared in the seventh issue of Mazowsze
ffeekry (March
25, 1982),
the JiI.'llrsaw underground newspaper that is the
official publication of NSZZ Solidarity 's Mazowsze Region. (Owing to the
length of the article the editors were compelled to shorten it somewhat.)
Many internees are being approached by secret service functionaries and
asked to sign the so-called "declaration of loyalty,
"
in which they pledge that
they w ill rifrain from engaging in activities " harmful to the state and the gov–
ernment of the Polish People's Republic.
"
ffe know of many cases where the
families of the interned have been similarry approached; in these instances the
functionaries attempted to convince them that they should persuade the interned
members of their famiry to sign the declaration, under the threat of harsh sen–
tences and long prison terms. The declarations serve in these cases as a particu–
larry vicious form of blackmail. They are intended as a psychological weapon to
break people's will to resist, deprive them of their dignity, divide them and create
conflicts between them. This article contains an anarysis of what, in the eyes of
the government, the purpose of such declarations is supposed to be, and how one
should behave when asked to sign them.
General ] aruzelski told you that those interned who
pledge to refrain from activities "contrary to the law " will be
released .
