Andrzej Gwiazda

Who is Andrzej Gwiazda?

Andrzej Gwiazda is an engineer and prominent opposition leader, who participated in Polish March 1968 Events and December 1970 Events; one of the founders of Free Trade Unions, Member of the Presiding Committee of the Strike at Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in August 1980, Vice President of the Founding Committee of Solidarity, then Vice President of Solidarity in 1980 and 1981; in December 1981 interned and next imprisoned with six other Solidarność leaders. His wife, Joanna Duda-Gwiazda also was a prominent member of the anticommunist opposition in the 1970s and 1980s.

Gwiazda's father was a sailor of the Riverine Flotilla of the Polish Navy, stationed in Pińsk, where the family moved in 1939, a few months before the outbreak of World War II. His father Stanisław fought in the Polish September Campaign, as a soldier of Independent Operational Group Polesie. After capitulation of Poland he was caught by the Germans, and spent the war in Oflag II-C in Woldenberg. Young Andrzej, together with mother Zofia and grandmother, was in 1940 deported by the Soviets to Kazakhstan, where they stayed until 1946.