Elżbieta Sienkiewicz-Romańska

* 1954

(On the news of the Solidarity rising) “the enthusiasm was great, there was no anxiety, I was fascinated by the fact that something was happening, something was changing - people did not yet know what, but it must be something great”.

Born in 1954 in Bolesławiec. Before the Solidarnosc movement was established, she cooperated with the Workers’ Defence Committee. Associated with “Solidarity” since September 1980, after the imposition of martial law, she began to engage in opposition activity in underground structures in Wrocław and the Region, including the Teachers’ Solidarity. After the internment of the leader of the Wrocław Educational Solidarity for Psie Pole District, Ewa Jagodzińska’s, pretending to be her cousin, visited her in the prison in Wrocław, and then from January to July 1982 in the internment camp in Gołdap, passing on information, money and food packages. Since June 1982, an activist of the Archbishop’s Charitable Committee, an observer of political trials in the courts, has been drawing up reports, collecting and passing on information about the repressed persons and the ongoing trials to the underground press and the Primate’s Committee. She sought housing for those in hiding, provided money and parcels for political prisoners and their families in Wrocław, Bolesławiec and Lubin. She helped to organise medical care for those released from internment and repressed, and to organise leisure activities for their children. She distributed press and literature of independent publishers, stamps, photographs, cassettes, co-edited the magazine “Jeż”. She took part in actions against martial law repressions, signed letters of protest, participated in independent film screenings and theatre performances, meetings with writers, directors, happenings of the Orange Alternative. She supplied transmitters to the places where the illegal Solidarity radio broadcast was broadcast. She provided money from abroad to members of Solidarity. She recorded political processes in Wrocław with a group of radio broadcasters. In 1989, she was involved in the first, partially free parliamentary elections. After 1989 to this day, she was involved in teaching work.