Janusz Krupski
| Janusz Krupski | |
|---|---|
Janusz Krupski
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| Minister of Combatants and Victims of Repression | |
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In office May 19, 2006 – April 10, 2010 |
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| Succeeded by | Jan Ciechanowski |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 9, 1951 Lublin, Poland |
| Died | April 10, 2010 (aged 58) Smolensk, Russia |
| Awards | Order of Polonia Restituta |
Janusz Krupski (May 9, 1951 in Lublin – April 10, 2010) was a Polish historian, member of the democratic opposition to communist rule in Poland during the People's Republic of Poland and a government official.
Krupski acquired his degree in history at the Lublin Catholic University in 1975. While there he became friends with other future opposition leaders, such as Piotr Jegliński and Bogdan Borusewicz (who in 2010 briefly served as President of Poland, after the death of Lech Kaczynski in the same plane crash in which Krupski died). Between 1977 and 1988 he was the chief editor of the independent, non-censored, underground journal Spotkania ("Meetings"). Originally Krupski planned to steal a ditto machine from the Socialist Union of Polish Students office to print the journal, but eventually decided that that was too risky. Instead Jegliński managed to obtain the machine in Paris, while on a study trip; he worked at a Paris pizzeria to get the money for it. The printing machine (private ownership of which was illegal under communism) was smuggled back into Poland by shipping it with a theater troupe as supposedly a piece of a stage set. It was the first underground, privately owned oppositionist printing machine in post-World War II Poland. The first work printed on the machine was George Orwell's Animal Farm, also unavailable in communist Poland, although the quality of the material was so low due to the inexperience of Krupski and others that the copies had to be discarded. The students also used the printing machine to produce pamphlets outlining violations of human rights by the communist government in Poland which were then smuggled to the West.
While still a student, Janusz met his future wife, Joanna.
In 1980 he joined the Solidarity movement, and served on the coordinating committee of its Gdańsk branch. During the state of martial law in Poland he was persecuted by the communist authorities. After ten months in hiding he was arrested and interned by the authorities in a special Internment Camp. His mother made numerous appeals for his release on his behalf (Janusz himself refused to make them) but they were turned down.
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Wikipedia