In the Polityczna Kawa program (Political Coffee) on TV Republika, guest of Tomasz Sakiewicz, Andrzej Valenducq, shared an incredible story about his father that sheds new light on the nationwide protests of the 1980s.
August 1980 and the creation of Solidarity were preceded by the Lublin July. This refers to a wave of strikes in Lublin and the surrounding region, which began with railway workers. It is said that employees of the PKP Lublin Locomotive Depot blocked train traffic, which later motivated the entire Lublin Railway Junction to join the protests. However, in Political Coffee with Tomasz Sakiewicz, another story emerged that offers a different perspective on the nationwide wave of protests.
The program’s guest was Andrzej Valenducq, who lives in France and founded the Gazeta Polska Club in Lyon. On TV Republika, he shared a story about his father, Władysław, which his father only told him after arriving in France. “He kept this story to himself all the time because he was afraid to reveal the truth about what happened there,” Valenducq said.
“My father worked at the Lublin Meat Processing Plant on Turystyczna Street. He was simply a person responsible for maintaining the production lines. […] Seeing two train cars filled with meat and packed in cans – I don’t know if you remember, there were such cans of pressed ham, 5 kilograms, on which it wasn’t written that it was ham; the communists hid it, and it was labeled as paint,” he said, referring to the food exports from Poland to the Soviet Union at that time. The communist authorities were preparing food price increases.
Valenducq continued: “My father took advantage of the situation because he was working the third, night shift, alone, with a colleague who was in another part of the plant. And my father, who was a locksmith and a welder, simply decided that something had to be done.”
“Of course – a train has iron wheels and the tracks are also made of iron. He just welded lightly, made a few welds, which caused that when he finished the third shift, the team that brought in the locomotive – and these were the railway workers – had difficulties starting the transport,” he said.
As the guest of TV Republika reported, the man who gave the “spark” to the nationwide strikes in the 1980s was none other than Władysław Valenducq.