Stefan Minc in Warsaw, 2003

It’s me in 2003. Now I live in Warsaw.

My first wife died in 1976, in November. And I was left alone. My second wife's name is Zofia, and we are together till this day.

My relationship with Zofia began when my former wife was still alive. Zofia is quite simply a good human being.

She believed it was my God-given duty to take care of Maria, who was ill and needed me.

Anyway, I always said that I never stopped loving her, it just happened this way, she is not to blame for being ill. It was cyclical depression, and it was best to treat it in the hospital.

So Maria was in the hospital, and I was coming to visit her almost every day, and Zofia would sit on the bench in front of the hospital and wait.

My children would have preferred, naturally, if this was not the case.

But after their mother's death, and after they themselves had experienced some hard times in their lives, they did understand their father. And their relations with my second wife are now very warm.

Zofia was born in 1942, so she is much younger than me, a whole 22 years. She is an accountant.

At the beginning, when we first met, she was working at the Polish Association of Youth Shelters, and later she had a job at the Headquarters of the Union of Polish Teachers, as the deputy of the head accountant.

At present she is retired, but she does accounting for various social organizations, making some extra money that way. This is why we can afford to travel, to take trips abroad - because we have the means.

What about the final period of my professional life?

I worked in the party apparatus until 1970. In 1970, in the fall, I moved to the Headquarters of the National Polish Bank, because I was, after all, an economist.

When I was still in the Central Committee I was taking care of the Investment Bank.

And later the Investment Bank was made a part of the National Polish Bank. For 11 years I worked at the National Polish Bank. Poland was a member of the International Investment Bank in Moscow, and my job was to obtain loans for investments, which then served mostly Poland, but also other countries associated in the Council of Mutual Economic Support.

I retired at the turn of 1981 and 1982. My children are adults, they work, I have four grandchildren: Michal Minc, Rafal Minc, Marta Jankowska and Andrzej Jankowski.