The following text is not a historical study. It is a retelling of the witness’s life story based on the memories recorded in the interview. The story was processed by external collaborators of the Memory of Nations. In some cases, the short biography draws on documents made available by the Security Forces Archives, State District Archives, National Archives, or other institutions. These are used merely to complement the witness’s testimony. The referenced pages of such files are saved in the Documents section.

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Bogusław Ziobrowski (* 1957)

• urodzony w kwietniu 1957 r. w rodzinie robotniczej

• wychowywany w dyscyplinie przez ojca, byłego wojskowego

• po szkole średniej wyjeżdża do fizycznej pracy w NRD

• po 8 miesiącach pracy wybrany na przewodniczącego polskiej grupy pracowników w niemieckich związkach zawodowych w Weimarze

• w 1979 r. rozpoczyna pracę w PKS (Państwowej Komunikacji Samochodowej) we Wrocławiu jako kierowca autobusu

• 26 sierpnia 1980 r. przyłącza się do strajku MPK (Miejskiego Przedsiębiorstwa Komunikacyjnego)

• przedstawiciel PKS-u w Międzyzakładowym Komitecie Strajkowym (MKS), wybrany wiceprzewodniczącym MKS

• 30 sierpnia 1980 r. rusza do gdańska po kopie porozumień sierpniowych, żeby Wrocław zakończył strajk

• po strajku zostaje członkiem Międzyzakładowego Komitetu Związkowego, gdzie kieruje Działem Interwencji między zakładami pracy, a później przewodniczącym związku zawodowego PKS w Polsce

• w 1991 r. zakłada własną firmę i nadal jeździ autobusem

Bogusław Ziobrowski was born in the working-class family and had three siblings. His father was an ex-marine and was a very strict at home.

When he was about to complete vocational school, he found out that the Ministry of Agricultural was recruiting manual workers to work in GDR. He went to Warsaw, obtained documents there and one week after that he went to Weimar, where he began working in the Landmaschinen company, which was producing agricultural machines. After eight months of working in Weimar, the election of Polish workers for trade unions took place: ‘I was elected the chairman of the group of these workers. This group consisted of 150 persons. And automatically I became a member of union council of the German plant. (…) And then I came into contact with trade union work for the first time’.

He did it voluntarily up to May 1979. ‘Every time Polish workers had troubles, they went to the foreman, (…) if the foreman didn’t get troubles sorted, then they went to their chairman. As the chairman, I used to go to the hall or the shift manager, or one of the directors to talk. (…) There was also a lot of social work conducted’. Ziobrowski felt that trade unions had a moving spirit. When he came back to the country, he found out about recruiting bus drivers to Motor Transport Company in Wrocław.

He applied for it because: ‘like many of my friends, I wanted to drive a big vehicle’. In June 1978 he started working in the Motor Transport Company within the Passenger Department as a driver. He worked there until 1991 with the break for trade union activity. Thereafter he conducted his own business activity.

There weren’t so many possibilities of trade union action in Poland in 1979 as there were in the GDR. When – like in Germany – he spoke loudly that he didn’t like something, or asked about something, what he heard was: ‘I haven’t work long here yet, not everyone knows me in the Motor Transport Company , and I have already talked back!’

In July 1980 drivers heard the news about strikes on the coast. They got more interested in them at the end of August, when strikes in Szczecin and Gdańsk had started. Only some pieces of information were passed on, so they only talked among themselves. He found out about the strike in Wrocław from the Municipal Transport Company driver after he returned from the night shift. He turned to his base under the pretext of having to check the bus’ defect and instead he went to Grabiszyńska street to the Municipal Transport Company depot to check out what was happening.

‘There was already organization, to which Tomek Surowiec, (…) Jurek Piórkowski and       a couple of lads from Motor Transport Company belonged. They explained to him that they didn’t have their own demands and were simply supporting Gdańsk and that Motor Transport Company could join the strike. After his return, the discussions began, so he explained that it was only about giving support for Gdańsk and they decided to join in. Against the management, they blocked the exit routes from the depot. ‘I didn’t hesitate long (…) I went to the metal shop and bought two meters of a thick chain and the padlock to close this gate (…), and that’s sort of how it all started in the Motor Transport Company’.

At that time the Intercompany Strike Committee had already been formed on Grabiszyńska street. ‘By virtue of the fact that not only Motor Transport Company went on strike, a proposal was put forward that we would form the Intercompany Strike Committee (…) When Intercompany Strike Committee was activated, we returned to the Motor Transport Company (…) and we organized a mass meeting so that our strike committee could be chosen.’ The Committee decided, that Ziobrowski would become the representative of the Motor Transport Company in the Intercompany Strike Committee, so he went to Grabiszyńska street. In the meantime the director of enterprise tried to stop them but they told him that they wouldn’t return to work unless the 21 demands from Gdańsk were fulfilled.

Ziobrowski became a deputy chairman of the Intecompany Strike Committee at the depot on Grabiszyńska street and stayed there until the strike ended.

When agreements with the government were signed on the 30th of August in Szczecin, they decided that the strike would last further until the strike in Gdańsk ended. They were afraid of misinformation by media. Telephone contact was impossible so they decided to go to Gdańsk to find out how the situation looked like. ‘I said: listen, let’s go!’ Władysław Frasyniuk suggested that Ziobrowski, Antoni Skinder and Hubert Hanusiak should have gone.

‘We have been seeking the man who offered that he would give us a lift by škoda Octavia since that day till now’ . They prepared documents and went by detour to Gdańsk in order to avoid being arrested. ‘We got to the shipyard. (…) We said to the people: let us come in, we are from Wrocław! Surprisingly, people pushed us through to the gate’. On the spot we found out that the agreement with the government had already been signed. They were led to meet Bogdan Lis who then took them into a small room, in which Wałęsa was sitting. Ziobrowski told him that he would not come back to work until they got the confirmation.

It made Wałęsa nervous but after getting the explanation, he ordered to give them copies of agreement which Anna Walentynowicz had finally approved. An idea arose to transfer them back to Wrocław by helicopter but they were afraid of the army. They got a car from voivode of the Gdansk voivodeship so that they weren’t stopped on the way. They reached Wrocław in the morning, ‘and people were striking - not only in Wrocław but in the entire macro-region, representatives were in the depot and they were also waiting for decisions, because today it is possible to call one friend or another to get information (…) but back then it wasn’t possible.

We brought this agreement, colleague Piórkowski read the demands and the entire protocol aloud. He showed the agreement to the people ‘that it was identical with the original document, Anna Walentynowicz, member of Intercompany Strike Committee Gdańsk’ and that’s how this phase of the strike ended’.

Participants of the strike were afraid of pacification: ‘Each of us was such a hero, but inside, when we gave it a second thought…’. Every day meetings, negotiations and discussions about the future took place with the local government. Ziobrowski registered new companies which joined the strike and issued certificates.

There were provocations transpiring, from the security service which all the time stood behind the gate of the depot and guarded the strikers. The ban on drinking alcohol was applied on the area of depot not to give any pretext for intervention of authorities. Inhabitants of Wrocław came up to gates to show their support to the strikers.

The church service, which was held by priest Stanisław Orzechowski, organised by the worker of the depot was a touching moment. ‘There were so many people in the depot area, and three times more around… Apart from the 1st May mass meeting in communistic time, it was nothing like that before - the will of people to show support. It was touching – a feeling similar to a thunder.

It was something unprecedented. The enormous number of people which stood behind the fence made tremendous impression on me. It uplifted every single man. (…) A heartbeat, a pulse, a pressure - it was what every man felt inside! One could feel that all the people… that a significant work was being done! That people not only were there but also approved of our action and would never say that we did something wrong, that we were guilty, because they couldn’t get to work. (…)This church service was a finishing touch’.

After the strike had finished he got back home and was sleeping for hours and it was hard to wake him up. Later, when he drove by taxi to the Motor Transport Company, he found out that trade union got the new registered office from the voivode, so he immediately went to Grabiszyńska street, where nobody was in fact still present in the office.

In the new office he found out about the formation of the Intercompany Strike Committee and was delegated to work with trade unions, for unionizing other trade unions in different workplaces. He became in the short time the chairman of trade union of the Motor Transport Company for entire Poland. He participated in signing the departmental agreement with the government in 1981. When the situation of trade unions started changing in the country, he participated in the transfer of residence of trade unions to PaFaWag to escape from a danger of intervention of authorities.

After the martial law was declared in Poland in December 1981, he was called for interrogations in Wrocław and in Warsaw in connection with debiting money from trade union bank account, just before their requisition by authorities.

During one of interrogations Col. Błażejewski suggested that he should go abroad or declare that he wouldn’t conduct political or trade union activity anymore. His wife was in an advanced stage of pregnancy and had health problems so he decided to stay. For the period of the martial law he stayed at home. He was sent to compulsory leave by the Motor Transport Company which lasted for a few months. At that time he tried to get in touch with other trade unionists, he was a delegate to the voivode and general Stec but he didn’t conduct any significant activity.

His wife who was a nurse at the military hospital had troubles at her workplace and was being harassed. The reason for it was probably anxiety that she might have known which employees supported strike and Solidarity. When he return from leave, he was offered to drive a new bus but he took it like an attempt to enforce loyalty on him. Therefore he got overdue holiday leaves and came back to drive an old bus. He went on long distance routes through the whole Poland, he was a driver of groups of clerical students and of class trips. For a long time he had a feeling that he was under constant control.