I was hugely relieved that Stalin had died.
It's true that I didn't know what might change and if anything would change.
But I had this great hope that just maybe, this was the start of some kind of change – fortunately, it was.
Those radio bulletins about Stalin's state of health being broadcast long after he had died, I imagine –
I listened to those intensely.
And when it became apparent, when the announcement was made in a solemn voice that Stalin was dead,
then my first reaction was to dance, I've never danced before
and I don't know how to dance but I wanted to dance.
But I resisted the urge because, well, you can't do that when someone's died, you can't react like that.
Well, I know who it was, but still, no, I won't do that because he's died,
that would be a bit bad, for me that would be a bit bad.
But I really wanted to, and from that moment on, every day I was disappointed.
Nothing was changing, but there were new... well, not new faces but new interpersonal set-ups.
Western radio was beginning to report that they're arguing,
there's disagreement but nothing at all was changing
until finally you could clearly see that there were changes happening.
And there was that enormous joy when it turned out that Beria was dead.
So we had a bit of happiness after all.
I was always one of those who believed that no way of thinking that
had been accepted once, was a good way of thinking.
But that's how I used to think, in a very systemic way,
that there is a system and if someone dies,
even if they're a very important person in that system, nothing changes.
Yet that isn't true – it contradicts the opposite which is also untrue
and you have to be very careful with this kind of massive generalisation.
Then there was Światło and the revelations that comrade Światło made.
Listening to that also gave a lot of pleasure,
in a specific sense of that word,
and here I had no doubt that something must come of all of this.
It might be more or it might be less but somehow we'll have to adapt to it.
This adaptation will be clumsy but if he escaped, then he had a reason for escaping,
and if he had a reason, then the fact that he escaped can't not have a result.
So this was a great thing, a great event, a truly great event.
I had that brochure sent attached to a balloon quite early on.
It reached me quite soon in the Zielonagóra region.
So apart from my attempts to listen to this regularly on the radio,
I later had this in my hand in print.
