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Freedom Collection

Interviews with Zbigniew and Zofia Romaszewski

Interviewed October 3, 2024

MS. ROMASZEWSKA: International support for Solidarity was for us, incredibly, incredibly significant. At the moment when, for instance, Lech Walesa received his Nobel [Peace] Prize [in 1983], yet we all felt – well, of course, Solidarity is who got the Nobel Prize, and somehow that it was every single one of us who received the Nobel Prize – I remember this being a huge deal at the time. And this was when my husband was still in prison, so because I was out, I had decided this was something unspeakably marvelous [Lech Walesa was the leader of the Solidarity independent trade union and served as president of Poland from 1990-1995. Solidarity was a labor union formed by Gdansk ship builders that transformed into a nationwide resistance movement].

MR. ROMASZEWSKI: That there was money being sent from the United States, say. For instance, in our case, when we were operating the Bureau of Intervention and Assistance and Human Rights. Then what we received were – well, were very decent resources from NED [the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonpartisan democracy promotion organization], which allowed us to pay the fines, to pay attorney fees.