Ryszard Siwiec's self-immolation

Poland has marked the fortieth anniversary of the tragic death of Ryszard Siwiec, a philospher and former Home Army soldier, who set himself on fire at a crowded stadium in Warsaw, as a sign of protest against the Soviet-led invasion on Czechoslovakia. He was one of three Polish men known to have committed self-immolation in protest against communism.

Joanna Najfeld reports

On the 8th of September 1968, one hundred thousand spectators, including foreign diplomats, were watching a communist propaganda event - the celebration of the national harvest festival at the Dziesieciolecia Stadium in Warsaw.

Suddenly a middle-aged man sitting on the bleachers, stood up all in flames. Militia officers tried to put out the fire, but he kept pushing them away, shouting anti-communist slogans. Because of the loud music, many other distractions and the swift action of communist functionaries, Siwiec was silenced, and very few people even noticed him. The newsreels of the event never mentioned the tragic situation. Nor did the live radio commentators who went on describing the joyful celebration as if nothing unusual was happening: 'Girls in four, long rows are holding hands... they are moving forward dancing graciously... the endings of the rows come together to form circles... we are observing a dance full of grace and lightness...'

Extensively burned, the man died four days later in hospital. The dramatic act was attributed to his alleged mental illness. Communist militia also spread false rumors about the man's alcohol addiction.

In actual fact, Ryszard Siwiec was a a father of five children, a philosopher and a former Home Army officer. He refused to work as a teacher, not to contribute to the communist indoctrination at schools. Instead, he did a lot of underground work, printing and distributing opposition literature.

Planning the self-immolation in advance, Siwiec left a farewell note for his family and a tape-recorded message, explaining how he couldn't stand communism...

'Hear my cry. The cry of an ordinary, average man, the son of a nation, that loves its own freedom and the freedom of others more than anything, more than his own life! Come to your senses, it's not too late yet!'

'It is a total dictatorship of evil, which cannot exist without hatred, lies and violence. There is no price that is not worth paying for preventing such a system from ruling the world.'

'S.O.S! Save the most precious traditions of our nations: tolerance, respect of other people, freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and belief.'

Siwiec's family never suspected anything that dramatic kind could happen, says Wit Siwiec, the man's son: 'I asked myself the question - why? Dad, why?'

The authorities limited the family's access to the man dying in hospital, says the son: 'Only our mother was allowed to see him in hospital. They did not let anyone else. And it's true that the history was silenced. They were trying to make people think father was crazy, they were spreading false rumors. They did everything that was in the power of the system to prevent the truth about my father's deed from seeing the light of day and I have to say that they were successful for quite a while.'

Some months after his death, on the occasion of a similar incident in Czechoslovakia, Radio Free Europe was the first medium to mention Ryszard Siwiec. The letter Siwiec wrote to his family reached his wife only twenty years later, when it was found in the archives of the communist police. Later, a seven-second video clip recorded by one television operator was discovered.

Historians agree, the death of Siwiec was symbolic, it did not reach the public conscience, it did not resound as Siwiec had wished. Today, Siwiec's testimony tells us that there were people who would rather cry out in deadly desperation than swallow the communist propaganda. Historian Andrzej Paczkowski: 'There were people who not only did not believe in what they were told on the radio, what they were shown on television, or what they read in state-controlled newspapers, but who also considered it crucial to express their mind.'

To make up for the scant knowledge about Ryszard Siwiec, some attempts have been made to commemorate him.

In 1991 the city council of Przemysl, Siwiec's home town, named a bridge after him. In 2003, Poland's ex-communist president Aleksander Kwasniewski wanted to give Siwiec an posthumous award, but was rejected by the man's family. A plaque commemorating the man's tragic protest has been placed near the entrance to the Dziesieciolecia Stadium and Poland's Ombundsman Janusz Kochanowski recently suggested, that the whole stadium should be named after Ryszard Siwiec.

It seems that Siwiec may be better remembered in the former Czechoslovakia. In 2001, the Czech president Vaclav Havel awarded him the highest Czech orderIn 2006 Ryszard Siwiec's son received another order from Slovakia. On the 40th anniversary of the event, a concert took place in Prague to remember the Pole's protest against the Soviet-led aggression on Czechoslovakia.