Cradle of Solidarity

Panoramic view of the Gdansk Shipyard
Photo by Bernadeta Galus

Gdansk has always been an important shipbuilding centre. The first shipyard of any size must have already existed in the 13th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there were over 10 shipyards in Gdansk. After WW2, two most important of them, Schichau Werft and Danziger Werft, both considerable damaged as the result of the war operations, were merged and the Stocznia Gdanska (Gdansk Shipyard) was founded. It had already delivered over 1000 seagoing ships of all types, including general cargo vessels, reefers, container carriers, Ro-Ro ships, ferries, fishing ships as well as sailing ships (for example the three mast square rigged vessel Dar Mlodziezy, a training ship for the Gdynia Maritime University).
The Shipyard gained a world-wide fame in August 1980 when a sit-in strike concluded in acceptation by the communist government all the 21 original postulates of striking workers, pushing for independent trade unions and improving economic conditions for Poland's labour force. Thanks to these in September 1980 the Solidarity Trade Union was founded.

Monument of Fallen Shipyard Workers
erected in 1980 in memory of those who were killed by the police during strikes in December 1970. Photo by Bernadeta Galus

The authorities of Gdansk are interested in creating the European Solidarity Centre to commemorate that the origin of the Solidarity ushered in a process of fundamental historical changes such as the fall of communism and the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany and the European Union extension.

Now the "Roads to Freedom" exhibition is on display in the hall where the communist authorities negotiated with the shipyard workers in August 1980. One of the most moving exhibits is a set of two boards on which the 21 postulates of the striking workers were written. Saved, thanks to the Polish Maritime Museum employees, from confiscation and destruction when martial law was introduced in December 1981, in 2003 the boards were entered into the UNESCO "Memory of the World" Register.