Fot. Office of the Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship

It is not without reason that Gdańsk is called the city of freedom. When the strike broke out in the Gdańsk Shipyard in August 1980, no-one supposed that it would be the first stone in a landslide that would lead to the undermining of the post-war division of the world, the overthrow of the Communist system and the creation of a new order in Europe. The striking workers under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa presented 21 demands to the authorities. The strike ended on 31 August with the signing of the Gdańsk Agreement, which enabled the formation of Solidarity, the first independent trade union in this part of Europe and at the same time a powerful social movement.

Monument of Fallen Shipyards Workers 1970

The place which definitely has to be seen is the Gdańsk Shipyard (ul. Doki). Here, next to the famous Gate no. 2, the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers soars into the air. This commemorates those who were killed in December 1970, when Gdańsk was the scene of dramatic battles. Nearby is the entrance to the “Roads to Freedom” exhibition. Here we can find, among other things, a fragment of the Berlin Wall and the wall over which the legendary leader of the August events, Wałęsa, climbed in 1980.

The interior exhibits are housed in the old Health and Safety at Work building, where the strikers’ negotiations with the authorities took place in 1980. The exhibition is multi-media in character, so visitors cannot only see but also feel the unusual atmosphere of August 1980 and the hostile environment of the martial law period and “taste” the everyday reality of Socialism by going into a shop with empty shelves or an underground illegal printing press. We can also see here the board containing the famous 21 demands from August 1980, which in 2003 was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a climactic document in the history of Europe.

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