Wreaths and flowers have been placed at several locations in the city that were the scene of the most tragic incidents during the revolt, including the gate to the Cegielski engineering plant. The main commemorative event is scheduled for 7pm.
The mayor of Poznań, Jacek Jaśkowiak, has told the Polish Press Agency that the events of 65 years ago were "the first attempt [in communist Poland] to fight for freedom, all the more courageous as it came after a period of Stalinist repressions. The people of Poznań rebelled against an unacceptable authority in what was the first step towards the regaining of freedom and democracy.”
Jaśkowiak noted the arrogance of those at the helm of government at the time, and the threat of then Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz that “the hand raised against the people’s power will be cut off.”
He praised the heroism of the people of Poznań who decided to act even though they were aware that the chances for victory were slight.
On 28 June, workers from the Cegielski plant, then called the Joseph Stalin Works, marched through the streets to protest against the refusal of the authorities to reduce their work norms and to raise wages. The march turned into a demonstration of over 100,000 people as the city’s population rushed to join it.
Protesters broke into a prison and ransacked the security office of the local branch of Poland's secret police. The communist authorities used 10,000 army troops and 380 tanks to quell the unrest. Fifty-eight people were killed and some 240 civilians were wounded. About 840 people were arrested or detained.
Landmark protest
The event, sometimes referred to as the Poznań Uprising, is considered as one of the landmark protests in Poland's 45-year spell under communist rule.
To mark the anniversary of the workers’ revolt in Poznań, Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance has launched a bilingual English/German-language publication entitled 28 June 1956 in Poznań. One of the first months of Polish freedom / 28 Juni 1956 in Posen. Der erste der polnischen Monate der Freiheit.
The book outlines the causes, course and outcome of the workers’ protests, as well as the reactions of some communist bloc countries and the Western world to the events in Poland.
The latter include remarks made by French writer Albert Camus at a rally of support to Polish workers which was held in Paris on 12 July 1956.
'What else is left but to shout and rebel?'
He said: “In a normal country, the rights of labour unions render it possible for the demands of workers to be met peacefully. But in a place where there is no right to strike, where legislation imposed on workers annuls with one fell swoop a hundred years of labour union achievements, where the government lowers the workers’ wages, which are already barely enough to cover basic needs – what else is left but to shout and rebel?”
The director of the Institute of National Remembrance, Jarosław Szarek, said during the book launch that the events in Poznań in 1956 were an important element in the chain of developments that a quarter of a century later gave birth to Poland’s Solidarity movement.
(mk/pk)