If the Walls Could Speak If the Walls Could Speak Inside a Women’s Prison in Communist Poland ANNA MÜLLER 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Müller, Anna, 1975– author. Title: If the walls could speak : inside a women’s prison in communist Poland / Anna Müller. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017016169 (print) | LCCN 2017035259 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190499877 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190499884 (Epub) | ISBN 9780190499860 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Women political prisoners—Poland—History—20th century. | Women—Political activity—Poland—History—20th century. | Reformatories for women—Poland—History—20th century. | Anti-communist movements—Poland—History. | Poland—History—1945–1980. | Poland—Politics and government—1945–1980. Classification: LCC HV9715.7 (ebook) | LCC HV9715.7.M85 2018 (print) | DDC 365/.4508209438—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016169 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America To Uncle Angel and Babcia Stara CONTENTS Acknowledgments  ix Dramatis Personae  xiii Introduction  1 1. War and the Penitentiary System  25 2. On the Threshold: Arrest and Interrogation  62 3. Learning One’s Cell, Learning Oneself  101 4. Prison Relationships: On Love, Trust, and Hostilities in a Prison Cell  137 5. Boredom and Emptiness, or the Flow of Life in Confinement  174 Conclusion  211 Epilogue  218 Notes  237 Bibliography  279 Index 297 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project has been in the making for a long time. It began in the summer of 2005 as predissertation work on the women of the Polish Solidarity movement. That summer in Warsaw, by pure chance, one of my Solidarity interviewees invited me to meet her aunt, a former prisoner of postwar Communist Poland. This is how I met Jadwiga Janiszowska, who, though at first reluctantly, shared with me the story of her imprisonment. I am not sure what it was— the serious- ness of her story, the rainy day outside, the excitement of discovering a story that felt unexplored at the time, or perhaps Jadwiga Janiszowska’s own hesi- tancy to let me inside her story of what she saw as a doomed youth— but I was hooked. Over the next two years, I met Ruta Czaplińska, Barbara Otwinowska, Ewa Ludkiewicz, Wiesława Pajdak-Śmiechowska, and many other women with whom I spent many hours. They walked me through their lives with patience, committed to telling their stories, as well as the stories of other women on whose behalf they spoke. It is thanks to them and for them that I persisted in fin- ishing this book. The process of writing and representing them to the best of my abilities, without romanticizing or simplifying their suffering or experiences, was at times disheartening. One downside of this long project is that with each passing year, I lost more and more of the women who entrusted their stories to me. Ruta Czaplińska died during the first year of my research. Janiszowska and Pajdak-Śmiechowska passed away soon after. Ludkiewicz, who continued her conversations with me long after our first interview, passed away two years ago. Though I wish I could have shared this finished book with them, I hope that its completion honors the memory and legacy of these women. I would like to thank all of my interviewees for opening their homes, hearts, and archives to me. I also wish to thank Barbara Otwinowska, the head of the Association of Former Women Political Prisoners Fordonianki (Związek Kobiet Byłych Więźniów Politycznych), for facilitating the contacts, making various collec- tions accessible, and encouraging me to finish this project. ix