Lech Wałęsa

📍Gdansk, Pomerania, Poland

“Lech Wałęsa was born in September 1943 in Popowo, a village in German-occupied Poland, the son of a carpenter. He trained as an electrician and in 1967 began working at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, on the Baltic coast, where he became involved in protests against the communist government. In August 1980, when a strike broke out at the shipyard, he climbed over the fence to join it and became its leader. The strike led to the founding of Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Soviet bloc, which soon had around ten million members. When martial law was declared in 1981 he was interned for eleven months. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, helped negotiate the Round Table talks that ended communist rule in 1989, and in 1990 was elected President of Poland. Gdańsk airport now bears his name.”

Sources: Wałęsa, L. A Way of Hope (1987), Henry Holt; Craig, M. The Crystal Spirit: Lech Walesa and His Poland (1986), Hodder & Stoughton