In Gdańsk, we visited the European Solidarity Centre. The museum walks the viewer through the history of the Gdańsk Shipyard, the protests of 1970 and 1980, the period of martial law implemented in 1981, the trade union negotiations, and the rise of the Solidarity Movement. Along the way, the viewer is given a glimpse into Soviet era life and the role of the Catholic Church during this period. The tour ends by uniting the Solidarity/Solidarność Movement with global endeavors fighting for human rights.
In many ways, the Gdańsk Shipyard was a natural birthplace for the Solidarity Movement. The Shipyard: People. Industry. City, an exhibition catalogue for the European Solidarity Centre, describes the way the shipyard fostered connections on multiple levels. First, shipbuilding was dangerous, laborious work that required teamwork. Workers bonded through the intensity of their work experience. Second, the shipyard area was, itself, its own community. At its peak, the Shipyard employed 17,000 workers. With families, the shipyard constituted the size of a small town. Further, given the stressful nature of the work, the workforce turnover was high. In order to counter these tendencies, the Shipyard offered a wide range of services meant to increase incentives to stay. The Shipyard had a hospital and specialist clinics; canteens and breakfast rooms; entire residential districts offering housing. There were sports clubs, a cultural center offering concerts, exhibitions, films and organized hiking trips. There were daycare centers, a kindergarten, summer camps for children and training centers for employees. It was a self-contained community. Finally, the massive ship created through the efforts of thousands was a source of personal and national pride. On an abstract level, the ship was a complex product conjoining many sub-industries. It was the culmination of work beyond the workers at the shipyard. It was a source of national pride—important visitors might be taken to the Gdańsk Shipyard for a tour--commingling with the personal pride of creating something that was very much larger than life.
The Gdańsk Shipyard is shorthand for the range of names this shipyard (or these shipyards) have retained over time. Like the city, its home, the shipyard oscillated between Prussian, German, Polish and Soviet administrations. When Gdańsk/Danzig was set up as an autonomous city-state after WWI, an international management company was directed to oversee the shipyard, effectively splitting it between Polish, German, French and British control.
According to the exhibition catalogue, although the Shipyard offered employees many services during the Soviet period, there were still housing, food and medical shortages that spurred the protests in 1980. Beginning with a list of demands nailed to Shipyard Gate #2, the Solidarity Movement gained traction as more and more workplaces joined the strike.
Today the Solidarity Centre, built to resemble a large ship, stands as a reminder of the shipyard which is no more. Like the Gdańsk Shipyard of the past, the European Solidarity Centre speaks of EU membership, the latest chapter in Polish political history.
—Nona Moskowitz