Why was the PRL dignitary rewarded with military assistance at his funeral? The Prime Minister’s Chancellery gasped (2024)

This case is delicate because it involves a recently deceased man whose family is still in mourning. However, it is not the biography of Józef Fajkowski, an activist of the United People’s Party during the time of the Polish People’s Republic, that is the problem here, but the fact that For the communist activist of this people, Józef Fajkowski, the current Polish authorities organized a state funeral with the participation of an honorary military auxiliary, and furthermore concealed the author of the request and the justification for this decision.

At the funeral, Deputy Culture Minister Bożena Żelazowska called the ZSL member an “outstanding state and social activist” in her farewell. The State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage also emphasized Fajkowski’s presence in the ranks of the Home Army. A member of Donald Tusk’s government also assured that “extremely rich knowledge and experience made this possible [Fajkowski] was appointed Deputy Minister of Culture and the Arts.

On March 5, I asked the Ministry of Culture about the justification for Fajkowski’s “eminence,” on the basis of which he was granted honorary assistance during his last trip. On March 19 I received an answer:

In response to your request for access to public information dated On March 5 this year, we would like to kindly inform you that the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has not organized or requested the funeral of the late from the Prime Minister’s Chancellery. Józef Fajkowski status of a state funeral.

Therefore, on March 24, I sent a question about the justification for such a high status of the funeral of the deceased to the Prime Minister’s Chancellery – no answer was received for five weeks. Is the government ashamed of its decision?

PRL treated as sovereign Poland

Józef Fajkowski actually joined the Home Army in January 1944, when he was not yet 17 years old, but it was not the age at which he could prove himself in the provincial town of Szczuczyn. In his memoirs (“Zapiski”, Warszawa 2007), Fajkowski mentions his activities in the Home Army in just three sentences. After the war, he took advantage of the amnesty and soon became a social activist of the United People’s Party. In later historical works on the subject he will maintain the official PRL propaganda line about the ZSL, although the axis of the authentic peasant movement was the PSL, ruled by Stanisław Mikołajczyk, suppressed and eventually disbanded by the communist authorities. In 1955, Aleksander Zawadzki, one of the most important figures at the communist court of Bolesław Bierut, signed the award of the Silver Cross of Merit to Fajkowski. Fajkowski was an official of several PRL bodies in Olsztyn and Warsaw. In the years 1972-1976 he was a member of the Sejm of the Polish People’s Republic, and in 1973 he became Deputy Minister of Culture and Arts, reporting to the PZPR apparatchik – Józef Tejchma. In 1981, Jaruzelski’s people planned to eventually send him to a diplomatic mission in Bulgaria during martial law he became ambassador of the Polish People’s Republic to Finland. He is the author of a number of publications from the Polish People’s Republic on the post-war popular movement (and a work on the martyrology of the Polish countryside), which are not of special value today due to the political line of the publishing houses of the time. So where are the “outstanding state and social activity” and the “exceptionally rich knowledge” that should elevate him to a ministerial position? On March 19, the Ministry of Culture was again asked about the justification for such an assessment of the deceased’s biography, but it still did not respond.

Lowering the rank of military aid

Fajkowski was not a specific supporter of the PRL regime, although he did participate in the laundering of the regime’s crimes by the communist authorities. His fate was one of many similar to his in the difficult reality of 20th century national history. But will this be enough for military aid thanks to particularly prominent heroes and representatives of free Poland? Why are officials from the Prime Minister’s Ministry and Chancellery ashamed to answer simple questions?

Józef Fajkowski was the father of Jolanta Fajkowska – a famous TV presenter and Janusz Fajkowski – an economist who was also involved in work in the ministries of the Polish People’s Republic. The Prime Minister’s Chancellery lightly provided military support for the burial of the deceased, treating the Polish People’s Republic as a sovereign state, membership in a recognized popular movement as an “outstanding state activity” and the state funeral as a courtesy gift for contemporary elites and a nod to the ZSL part of the PSL coalition. This is not how it should be.