Chapter Twenty-Four

IPN/RM/13129/2010

EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A STATEMENT MADE BY ROZA MOJESKA

1h. 22

Although I’d only met him once — and even then only for a few minutes — I had enormous respect for Father Nicodem. If I include my next few meetings, I’ve only known him — to this day — for about two hours. And yet he remains immensely important to me. It explains something about the nature of friendship and loyalty.

This was the man my husband had trusted implicitly And I did, too. He was our link to a voice we’d only heard, someone we’d never seen — the Shoemaker. All we had were his words. Whoever he might have been — and I still don’t know, and don’t want to know — what he said was more important than who he was. His identity, if revealed, would have been a distraction, for in the great struggle for truth, personalities don’t matter. It was his words that kept hope alive, spoke honestly at a time of lies, said what you thought but couldn’t or dare not say, reduced the big ideas to phrases you could easily understand. He educated, cajoled, amused… revealed. His words were free. They flew round Warsaw They gave you a taste of freedom that was within reach… beginning inside yourself.

We were pebbles on the path to his door, whereas Father Nicodem… he was the Threshold. So he bore a terrible responsibility. It was etched into his face. On those two occasions when we met — in 1951 and 1982 — his cheeks and neck were covered in cuts from a razor. I’m sure it was from the strain, from a shaking hand. Some of them were quite large and I often wondered why he didn’t give up trying to keep still and grow a beard.

1h. 32

When Father Nicodem opened the door it was as though he’d seen Brack. I had a fright of my own. He’d changed… almost beyond recognition. His eyes were heavy, pulling his head between his shoulder blades. He was in his late sixties by then, his hair a shocking white, as if he’d seen unmentionable things. A small detail comes to mind, in contrast to his face. His nails. They were beautifully clean and filed. They gave away his delicacy and sensitivity. They told you that he’d handle your soul with care.

1h. 36

I asked him if the Shoemaker was still alive. He said, ‘Yes’. I asked why he’d said nothing since 1951. Father Nicodem said, ‘He’d been broken.’ By what? ‘The death of two Friends.’ He didn’t have to say any more. We understood one another. But he wasn’t ready for what followed. I told him the Shoemaker had to speak again and that I would spread his words. ‘Remember, I’m the sleeper. I’ve come back to wake the dead.’ He waved his arms around as if trying to warn a train that there were children on the line, but I told him he had no choice. He had to go back to the Shoemaker. He was to tell him that I, the widow, demanded it. Not just for the sake of those two Friends but for a child who’d just been born and left without a name. Father Nicodem was pacing up and down the room, saying, ‘No’, and that’s when I recognised an appalling truth about myself. I’d done what he was doing for thirty years. My life since fifty-two had been one long walk, head down, murmuring ‘No’. But there comes a time when you have to say, ‘Yes’. When life becomes a ‘Yes’, whatever the cost might be. When we have to take the word back from those who control what will and what will not happen. This was my choice, my decision. Not Pavel’s. But I needed Father Nicodem’s, and the Shoemaker’s. We all had to stand together once more and say, ‘Stop, enough.’ We had to say ‘Yes’ to a future of our choosing, and to put words out there to wake the dead… to shatter the illusions that make oppression acceptable.

I told Father Nicodem that the first edition of Freedom and Independence would need to be ready within two weeks. He thought for a long, tortured time and then gave me the key to his back yard.

1h. 44

Pavel had told me how to set up the Friends — how to keep them separate in order to keep them together. He’d told me who to contact for paper and ink. I didn’t even know if these old Friends were still alive or if they were still willing or in a position to help. But that’s what happens with a ‘Yes’. You have to work everything out afterwards. It’s only with a ‘No’ that all the problems have been lined up beforehand.

1h. 52

As the hub of the wheel, my job was to hold the spokes, keeping them apart. I went first to Barbara and Lidia, women the SB would never notice; women who’d never thought they could fight back. I went to Mateusz, Bernard’s friend, who’d had his chance but fluffed it. The system was simple. We used prams. I collected the print run wrapped in parcels from a dustbin in Father Nicodem’s back yard. Over two or three days, trip after trip, I brought them to Barbara and Lidia who then trundled round Warsaw posting, dropping and giving. In time, as the circulation grew, and unknown to each other.’ they organised distribution teams. How they did it, I don’t know — any more than I knew who printed the paper. Sometimes I’d pick up my parcels and find an envelope with a shopping list and money. With the funds I’d go back to those old Friends who still had their ways and means, not to mention their children with minds of their own. The materials — paper and ink — would be delivered to me at a playground, a hotel, a station — it varied — and I’d drop them in Father Nicodem’s dustbin. It was magnificent. We were beating the tanks and armoured personnel carriers with a convoy of prams.

1 h. 59

Mateusz found safe-house lodgings and I moved every two weeks, borrowing clothes and shoes along the way Glasses, too, and hats. I never looked the same; I was never in the same place long enough for Brack to catch me. I paid my way by housework and cooking. I became, for the first time since leaving Mokotow, content.

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