Uploaded June 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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How a well-known opposition leader evaded capture by the communist authorities for almost five years. Part of our mini-series The Final Curtain.

In the early 1980s, Zbigniew Bujak was the head of Solidarity in the Warsaw region, a pro-democratic labour movement that was gaining in strength. So much so, in fact, that the communist leadership declared martial law in December 1981 in order to stop the opposition dead in its tracks. Hundreds of political activists were arrested, including much of the leadership of Solidarity. But Bujak managed to go into hiding before they had a chance to find him. Making use of an underground oppositionist network as well as methods of masking his movements, he managed to evade capture for five years.

Keeping Zbigniew in hiding became crucial for the underground opposition since not only was he orchestrating anti-regime actions, but his continued freedom remained a symbol of the secret police’s weakness.

How did his hiding end? What was the long-term impact of his activity? What did freedom mean for Bujak himself? How does he remember the shift of power from his own perspective? Find all the answers in the opening episode of Stories From The Eastern West’s new mini-series The Final Curtain.

More about the episode at Culture.pl //
https://culture.pl/en/podcast/SFTEW-THE-FINAL-CURTAIN-01-ZBIGNIEW

More episodes of THE FINAL CURTAIN //
https://culture.pl/en/the-final-curtain

Time stamps //
[01:07] How he came to Poland
[04:15] The election of John Paul II and how it changed Chris’ life
[05:30] Martial law and Chris’ most iconic photo
[10:04] Other revolutions Chris witnessed and photographed
[12:59] How he happened to be the first photographer to shoot the fall of the Berlin Wall
[16:00] What did Chris do after communism had ended?

Episode credits //
Written & produced by Wojciech Oleksiak
Edited by Adam Zulawski
Scoring & sound design by Wojciech Oleksiak
Hosted by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski

The Final Curtain is a mini-series from the creators of Stories from the Eastern West, featuring personal accounts from the Eastern Bloc's collapse. It was brought to you by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.