The union leader whose arrest sparked the Wujek strike
When news of his arrest reached Wujek on 13 December 1981, the miners decided not to work until he returned.
Jan Ludwiczak was a miner and chairman of the Wujek mine works committee of Poland's Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity. His detention became the immediate trigger for the miners' strike against martial law and their demand for the release of detained union activists. After his release, he endured demotion and surveillance while distributing underground publications at the mine, and in 1989 helped prepare Solidarity's restoration.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1937Born in Pecna near Poznań
- 1954Graduated from the Railway Vocational School in Poznań
- 1958–1959Served in the Mining Military Corps in Katowice
- 1965–1990Worker at the Wujek coal mine in Katowice
- 1980Vice-chairman of Wujek Solidarity's Founding Committee
- 1980–1981Chairman of Wujek Solidarity's works committee
- 1981–1982Arrested and interned, released in December 1982
- 1989Chairman of Wujek Solidarity's Temporary Founding Committee
Related historical events
Internment and underground activity, 1981–1989
On the night of 12 December 1981, at about 1 a.m., Citizens' Militia (MO) officers entered Ludwiczak's home and arrested him; the Katowice provincial authorities had placed him on a list of 648 'extreme' union leaders and activists. Miners who rushed to his aid were beaten, in what was recalled as the first blood shed under martial law. He was held in isolation centres at Jastrzębie-Szeroka, Uherce, Załęże near Rzeszów, Nowy Łupków, and Katowice. At Załęże he joined an uprising of the internees, and at Uherce a five-day hunger strike. Released on 23 December 1982, he returned to the mine but was demoted to a lower post. From 1983 to 1989 he nonetheless distributed underground leaflets and books at Wujek, while the Security Service (SB) repeatedly summoned, threatened, and pressured him to emigrate. In December 1983 he was detained beneath the miners' cross by the mine, beaten, and his home was searched. A member of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) since 1975, he was expelled in 1981. In January 1989 he chaired the Temporary Founding Committee that rebuilt Wujek Solidarity, and later received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007) and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity (2015). In 2016 a memorial plaque was unveiled on his former Katowice home, and his arrest opens Kazimierz Kutz's film 'Death as a Slice of Bread' (1994).