Halina Mikołajska (1925-1989)

Halina Mikołajska was born on 22 March 1925 in Krakow, where her father, an officer of the Polish Army, was stationed at that time. She spent the major part of her childhood in Warsaw; however, at the beginning of World War II, she moved, together with her mother and three sisters, first to Lviv, and then to Krakow.

World War II had dramatic consequences for her family. Halina Mikołajska lost her father, and after the death of her sister, her heartbroken mother lost all interest in looking after their home or her remaining daughters. At that time, Halina Mikołajska acted in Adam Mularczyk’s underground theatre in Krakow.[1] However, she could not fully focus on her acting career, because she was also involved in illegal trading in cigarettes to support her family and, moreover, deep in her heart she dreamt about being a professional singer.

[1] During the war, the cultural life of Poles was strictly supervised by the German occupants, so secret theatre centres became a common phenomenon.

Already in her teenage years, Halina showed interest in both art and science. After the war, inspired by achievements of Polish Nobel prize winner Maria Curie-Skłodowska, she studied chemistry at the Jagiellonian University for some time, but she still continued to dream about a career as a singer. Eventually, after graduating from the National School of Drama at the Stary Theatre, she started her career on the stage of the Krakow theatre, where she was immediately very successful. Even before graduating, she played Eurydice in Orpheus and Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello in the Stary Theatre in Krakow, gaining the recognition of the audience and critics alike.

In 1950, Halina Mikołajska decided to return to Warsaw, where she also started to work in film and television, and this increased her fame and recognition as an artist. Earlier, she was married twice, and in 1955 she eventually became the wife of the Polish writer and reporter, Marian Brandys, with whom she remained for the rest of her life. They did not have their own children; however, Halina’s niece lived with them, and the couple treated her as their own daughter.

In June 1976, a wave of protests associated with a drastic increase in food prices took place in Poland. They were brutally crushed. In response to these events, the Workers’ Defence Committee was established, and Halina Mikołajewska joined it immediately after its creation. She went to workers’ trials, and collected money for families of those who were imprisoned. During her stay abroad in the West, she also collected funds and informed emigrants and representatives of the global culture about the situation of the opposition in Poland. Together with her husband, she made her flat available to organisers of opposition meetings and to women in need.

She participated in a three-week hunger strike in the Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw in 1979. The strike was held for the realise of dissidents imprisoned in Czechoslovakia, who fought for fundamental human rights, including the right to privacy and freedom of speech.

The ruling party did not overlook her activities, and already in 1976, as a consequence of placing her signature under the Letter of 59, her name was added to the censorship list, making it impossible for her to perform in state theatres, radio and television. This meant the end of her career as an actress. She remained formally employed at the theatre until 1983, when she decided to officially quit the stage and retire.

Harassment by the Security Service (SB), i.e. the political police functioning in those days, affected not only the career but also the private life of the actress. She received silent calls. She was harassed at her home, and her locks were filled with glue. She received letters with ridiculous accusations, as well as death threats. Her car was broken down all the time because some unknown perpetrators kept on slashing its tyres or pouring paint or varnish over it. On several occasions it was set on fire. They even went as far as to physically abuse her by staging an attack on a night train. Despite the great support of the theatre audience, letters, and bouquets of white and red flowers, the SB campaign greatly affected the mental condition of the actress, and in 1976 she attempted suicide by taking forty Valium pills. However, her life was saved and, despite health problems, she became involved once more in opposition activities.

Transcript 

Halina Mikołajska, born in 1925 in Krakow, was a famous Polish actress. She started her career at the Stary Theatre in Krakow and in 1950 she moved to Warsaw where she became a very famous movie actress. In 1967 during the six-day war between Arab States and Israel, Poland took sides with the Arabs and launched a campaign against the Jewish citizens of the state. These events had great impact on Halina and made her quite sceptical and critical of the regime. In the 1970s she became firmly involved in social issues and in 1975 she put her signature under a letter from 59 intellectuals opposing to a planned constitutional amendment, which resulted to putting her on the censor’s list and dooming her further acting career. In 1980 she joined the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarity and in 1981, when martial law was imposed, Halina Mikołajska and together with other activists she was arrested and imprisoned for a short period. She never resumed her acting career, and she began performing as a one-woman theatre group in churches and private homes. She died on the 22nd of June 1989 just three weeks after she had cast her vote in the first partly free elections.

Script/Narration: Marek Blacha, Kinga Handzlik, Bartłomiej Pocielej, Karolina Wierzba

Coordination: Manos Avgeridis, Ioanna Vogli
Audio editing – Mastering: Alexey Arseny Fokurov
Recorded at Antart Studios, Athens