Stanisław Pyjas

Stanisław Pyjas was a Polish student of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, member of the anticommunist student movements. He died on May 7, 1977 in Kraków. The exact circumstances of Pyjas’ death are still a mystery and his case, which is still disputed, shook public opinion in Poland. According to one scenario he was murdered and the killers, probably members of the communist Secret Services, arranged the death to look like an accident. The official scenario, however, states that his death occurred after he fell from the stairs while being drunk. In 2011 his body was examined, and the outcome states that it was the fall that caused his death and that he had not been beaten.

Stanisław Pyjas was born on August 4, 1953 in Żywiec. After graduation from a local high school, he moved to Kraków, to begin studies at the renowned Jagiellonian University. He studied Polish philology and philosophy.

Some time in 1976 Pyjas joined the Workers' Defence Committee, the organization which was created to help laborers, participants in the anticommunist street protests in Radom and Warsaw. Together with friends from the University, Bronisław Wildstein and Lesław Maleszka, Pyjas organized protests against repressions.

Pyjas’ body was found on May 7, 1977, in the staircase located in a building at 7 Szewska Street in Kraków’s historic center. His death shook the student community, with around 1,000 people showing up at the funeral in the village of Gilowice. Street demonstrations, such as Kraków’s Black March, erupted in several Polish cities and soon afterwards, Polish students, shaken by the death of their colleague, founded the Student Committee of Solidarity. On May 15, 1977, after a Black March, the founders urged the Polish government to reveal who was behind the crime. Among members of the Committee was Donald Tusk, who later became prime minister of Poland, and then EU President. It was the first organization of this kind in Eastern Europe.

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