Today in Labor History March 13, 1968: Student demonstrations in Warsaw led to street riots. All Polish universities went out on strike against the repressive communist regime, with students occupying the campus buildings. The strike, which came in the wake of Soviet withdrawals of diplomatic relations with Israel, in the protest of the 1967 war, spread throughout the country, leading to a violent government crackdown and antisemitic purge that was branded as anti-Zionism. Thousands of Jews fled the country because of political harassment and being fired from their jobs.
Today in Labor History February 23, 1882: B. Traven was born on this date in Poznan, Poland. Traven’s real name was probably Ret Marut. He was active in the Bavarian uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic of 1919. When the German state quashed the Republic and started arresting and executing activists, he fled to Mexico, where he began writing novels. Traven was a brilliant satirist and wrote novels sympathetic to workers and peasants, including the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “The Death Ship,” “The White Rose,” as well as his Jungle Series of novel depicting the plight of Indigenous campesinos in Mexico.
Revellers take part in a traditional event marking the last day of the carnival season called "Kusaki", a folk party and a re-enactment showing the "defeat of Death" where all roles are played by males, which takes place on Shrove Tuesday in Jedlinsk, Poland. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
"Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has issued a sharp public rebuke to American Republicans.
In a post on social media this morning, the centre-right politician said:
Dear Republican Senators of America. Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today. Shame on you."
In the middle of Europe in the middle of the twentieth century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered some fourteen million people. The place where all of the victims died, the bloodlands, extends from central Poland to western Russia, through Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic States.