Walentego Badlaka's well in the market square, Krakow (Katyn)

There is a water pump and a plaque in Krakow's market square.
It is dedicated to a man who set himself on fire in protest because he could not live a lie about Katyn.
Here are some photos I took earlier today.

Could someone please translate the plaque, please.

I tried to find a thread I could post these on and although there are a few on Katyn, I did not think they were suitable.

(If you find an appropriate place please just add this to it)

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in this place on the day of 21st of march 1980 WB, a soldier of the national army, completed a dramatic act of selfburning in protest agains demoralization of youth, the destruction of art and against the secrecy of murders of polish officers at Katyń by the commy/bolshevik murderers.

he couldn't live with lies. he died for the truth.

thanks for posting that....

Thank you, loco polaco.

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It reminds me of the Buddhist monk who set himself on fire in Saigon to protest a crackdown on Buddhism in 1963.
It is that graphic photo that remains in my mind's eye.

Thank you, this is just one more post showing the extrems some went to seeking justice for the victims. If only he were here today to see the movie.

you're welcome seanBM

I'd only wanted to point out that 'rzemiosło' meant rather 'small business' (not 'art') under communism.

'Rzemieślnik' is indeed craftsman/artisan, but this term (rzemiosło) was used for small business in Poland (any company - manufacture, services, trade - with less than some fixed number of employees, I already forgot, but I think it was 50 employees, could be registered as "zakład rzemieślniczy". If you wanted to employ more than 50 persons, you needed a cooperative or other government-controlled forms of business, where you weren't the real manager anymore). After a while the commies decided that even this little of "free market" was too much for a socialist country and started troubling them with legislative and administrative counter-measures.

Very interesting.

I did not understand that before.

I thought it meant craftsmen (the translation given to me earlier this evening) and assumed it meant the destruction of tradition but i was a bit ify on my assumption.

Very interesting indeed.

ok, how about: desctruction of arts and crafts.. the sign was placed there after the commie time not during so it's a bit hard to know exactly what they ment as everything polish was under attack by the darn communists.

I thought Krzysztof's explanation makes much more sence?


Not any longer.
I think some plaques are kind of poetic, to evoke an emotional response rather than a matter of fact statement, no?

I'm not sure what it would mean in English, but if it's something like home-made pottery, wycinanki etc., then the noun "rękodzieło" (hand-made) was in use.

From todays paper,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Siwiec

Ryszard Siwiec "commited suicide by self-immolation in protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. He set himself ablaze in Warsaw during a national harvest festival on September 8, 1968 at the Dziesięciolecia Stadium, and died in hospital four days later. His act was witnessed by nearly 100,000 spectators, including the national leadership and foreign diplomats who had been invited to the festival intended as a vast propaganda spectacle."

I think it was a 100 year since Mr. Siwiec was born.
i have just heard about him for the first time today.