Barbara Labuda (1949)

Barbara was born on 19 April 1949 in Żmigród near Wrocław, into a family belonging to the intelligentsia. While still at school, she was involved in activities of discussion clubs and groups, demonstrating unique leadership and organisational capabilities. She started studies at the University of Poznań, majoring in Romance philology. It was important to her that studying modern languages in the communist reality opened the way to foreign travel. Her first trip to Paris took place in spring of 1968, when she left Poland immediately after the events of March 1968.[1] In the capital of France, she found herself again in the vortex of youth rebellion. Her experiences of May 1968 at the Sorbonne University greatly influenced the development of her left-wing political views. She was abroad again in 1970–1974, at that time participating in seminars held at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. During her stay in that city, she became acquainted with the circles of French workers and French feminists.[2] And for the first time, she also had encountered a debate on the introduction of a liberal abortion act that raised great controversies there.[3]

On her return to Poland, she established direct contact with leading opposition activists – Karol Modzelewski and Adam Michnik, and the Workers’ Defence Committee, which was founded in 1976 as a response to a wave of repressions directed against workers, grouped Polish intellectuals critical of the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic.[4] Barbara was responsible for collecting and transmitting information about cases of human rights violations. She also distributed underground publications and managed organisational issues.[5] She created discussion meetings focused on the situation in Poland, the economy, social problems, human rights, and literature, which took the form of the Flying University.[6]

From 1980, Barbara Labuda was an activist of NSZZ “Solidarność” as a member of the Executive Committee of the Lower Silesia Region. She did things in which she was irreplaceable: created strategies for the Union operations and organised its structures. She established the first in Poland Trade Union University (Wszechnica Związkowa), which popularised knowledge about the union movement, the censorship system, the free market, and workers’ freedom. At the same time, at nights Barbara worked on her PhD dissertation.[7] From September 1980, she was an adviser of the Intercompany Founding Committee NSZZ “Solidarność”. In November 1980, she established the Discussion Club Tygiel in Wrocław, where activists of the opposition – representing different political wings of the Union – used to meet.

On the night of 12 December 1981, functionaries of the Security Service (SB) knocked on the Labudas’ door. They detained Aleksander Labuda, Barbara’s husband and a union activist. Barbara participated in the strike in the MPK Bus Depot No. 7 in Wrocław, and then in the State Railway Carriage Factory Pafawag that lasted until its pacification by militia forces. From that moment she had to live underground where, together with Władysław Frasyniuk, she was establishing new structures of the Union. From 1982, she was responsible for contacts between the regions and with the headquarters.[8] She hid in 37 flats in total, and she could not contact her family at that time.

Barbara Labuda was certain that her arrest was imminent.[9] It took place in October 1982, just before a meeting of the Transient National Committee “Solidarność”. She was arrested together with Władysław Frasyniuk. The prosecution demanded the imprisonment of four years for Barbara, and of ten years for Władysław. Eventually, she spent a year and a half in prison. Initially, she was held in the remand centre in Podwale in Wrocław. It was a former Gestapo detention centre. The cells were intended for two people, but ten women were held in them simultaneously. The prison room was equipped with a bucket in place of a toilet, a basin with water for washing and dirty blankets. Barbara did not receive any clothes. She also did not receive any food parcels, because the prosecutor refused his consent to it, as well as to any meetings with her family or correspondence. He also forbade her to have any books in her cell. Her fellow prisoners supported her by sharing their belongings. Also, prisoners from the men’s floor helped Barbara Labuda, sending her messages and providing her with soap and food. Later, she was also held in the prison in Kleczkowska Street, where she was imprisoned with criminals, and then in solitary confinement in the prison in Krzywaniec.[10] When she was released from prison under the amnesty, she returned to Solidarność and continued to work in the opposition. In 1983–1987 she was an author of articles published in the underground journals Tygodnik Mazowsze and Ogniwo. From 1987 she was a member and a representative of RKW Dolny Śląsk.