1. Anna Walentynowicz's firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk in August 1980 was the event that ignited the strike at the shipyard, set off a wave of strikes across Poland, and quickly paralyzed the Baltic coast.
22 Facts About Anna Walentynowicz
1. 2.
Anna Walentynowicz was a devout Catholic, who believed in social justice and standing up against oppression, and who became deeply moved in her later years by the teachings of Pope John Paul II, with whom she developed a personal relationship.
3.
One of the last letters which John Paul II wrote was to Anna Walentynowicz wishing her speedy recovery from a back injury.
4.
Anna Walentynowicz began her quest for justice by speaking out publicly when one of her supervisors stole money from the workers' bonus fund to play the lottery.
5.
For participation in the illegal trade union, Anna Walentynowicz was fired by the shipyard on 7 August 1980,5 months prior to her plan to retire.
6.
Anna Walentynowicz was a member of the Presidium of MKS.
7.
Anna Walentynowicz was acknowledged as the Woman of the Year in the Netherlands.
8.
From 14 to 16 December 1981 Anna Walentynowicz was a co-organizer of the strike in the Lenin Shipyard and after its pacification she was detained.
9.
Anna Walentynowicz talked about her expectations in an interview in 1985:.
10.
Anna Walentynowicz felt the new Solidarity elites abandoned the workers and ordinary people, not living up to the core Solidarity values of social justice.
11.
Anna Walentynowicz felt that Solidarity had been co-opted by self-interested individuals who reneged on their promises.
12.
Anna Walentynowicz mostly donated all which she had to those who needed help.
13.
Anna Walentynowicz was vocal pointing bad conduct of the Civic Platform political party in Poland.
14.
On 13 December 2005, Anna Walentynowicz accepted the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in Washington on behalf of the first free trade union Solidarity and was personally honored along with John Paul II and General Edward Rowny, Chief US Nuclear Arms Control Negotiator with the Soviets.
15.
Anna Walentynowicz is played by Frances Cox in Leslie Woodhead's docudrama Strike: The Birth of Solidarity.
16.
Anna Walentynowicz died in a plane crash near Smolensk on 10 April 2010, along with President Lech Kaczynski, First Lady Maria Kaczynska, and many other prominent Polish leaders, while en route to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre during World War II.
17.
In 2011, a commemorative plaque dedicated to Anna Walentynowicz was unveiled in the city of Gdansk.
18.
In 2015, a statue of Anna Walentynowicz was unveiled at the Pantheon of National Heroes of the Cemetery of the Fallen at the Battle of Warsaw in Ossow.
19.
On 12 October 2020, President of Poland Andrzej Duda officially unveiled a monument dedicated to Anna Walentynowicz in Kyiv, Ukraine, and said that she is "a symbol of the Solidarity movement, a woman who, among all the men who were there at that time, was an element contributing to the female way of thinking about Poland and Polish affairs".
20.
Anna Walentynowicz had always been a model worker, what is more, one who reacted to every wrong and injustice.
21.
Anna Walentynowicz has been a thorn in their side, because she is a model activist devoted to others.
22.
Anna Walentynowicz is a thorn in their side because she defends others and is capable of organizing her colleagues.