Anna Walentynowicz – Grave of Anna Walentynowicz at Srebrzysk Graveyard in Gdansk

Fact of the Polish figure „Women political rights in Poland”

Part of the „The emancipation of women” topic

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The events that have gone down in history as the “Solidarity Revolution” began with the dismissal of Anna Walentynowicz from her job at the Gdansk Shipyard, who was not only a long-time employee of the plant, but also took part in workers’ protests on the coast in 1970 that ended in a bloody pacification. When she was fired from her job at the shipyard, the workers formed a strike that soon grew into a major social movement that led, years later, to Poland’s liberation from Communist rule. During these events, Walentynowicz became one of the symbols of social resistance. In free Poland, this woman became one of the most important symbols of resistance against dictatorship. Anna Walentynowicz died on April 10, 2010, in a plane crash near Smolensk, when she was part of Lech Kaczynski’s presidential delegation to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. During the national mourning, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first prime minister of free Poland, remembering Anna Walentynowicz, said that “with her it all began.”