Mieczyslaw Najman leading the May Day demonstration

This is me on the May Day demonstration in Swinoujscie. I?m in the first row, with the party officials and war veterans. When I was working in Walbrzych, just after the war was ower, the party was organizing itself. Some miners came from Katowice and Sosnowiec, 'Will you join the party?' 'Well, why not, of course!' And I joined. They tell me, 'You know, you have to watch your step, the director above you, all these people must be gotten rid of. They're all of noble birth and enemies of People's Poland?' I went to see the director. 'You see, I don't fire you, but a new government will come, and you have a past that I don't.' I worked there for two or three months and I hear, 'You'll be the head of supplies for all the mines.' I worked in that position for almost a year and finally the party calls me. 'Comrade Najman, we've watched how you work, because no one wants to work as hard as you do, ride the tractors, organize the exchange, no matter what the weather, in freezing cold? You didn't look at the money, only to feed these miners, for this mine to operate as it should. We have a directorial position for you at the gardening enterprise.' 'I have no experience.' 'You'll learn, the most important part is to plant, you're a great manager, you've shown what you can do, demonstrated your talent.' I worked as chief executive in several state owned firms all those years, my wife stayed at home. Everything was all right until the 1960s, when ethnic background started to play a great role. Then I quit. My last assignment was a purchase outlet in Swinoujscie, town on the north-western tip of Poland, on the Baltic Sea. I arrived here, I look around, the air's beautiful. They gave me a three-bedroom apartment with a kitchen in the very center of the town, with a telephone. I started working at the purchase outlet. But it wasn't it, I didn't like the people I was supposed to work with. I fell ill, a doctor came, examined me. I tell him, 'So many years in war, more than twenty years a manager, I feel I've had enough.' He says, 'That's right. I'll give you a certificate, you'll appear before the medical board.' The board awarded me first-group disability benefits. My health wasn't okay. I went into therapy, because my nerves were really shattered. So many years, the war and all, the murders, no relatives, no nothing? And so I stayed here, in Swinoujscie. And I called it quits on everything.