‘The truth will make us free’: students on the march in post-war Europe

One night in early autumn 1982, two young men roamed the streets of Lodz in Poland. It was a dark period in the country’s history – one of many. A mass movement led by the Solidarnosc trade union had recently attempted to challenge the communist regime which had kept the country under a heavy Soviet yoke, with little to offer but food shortages, economic decline and the erosion of national identity. The authorities had responded with force to the widespread strikes, declaring martial law in December 1981 and rolling tanks into cities. Protests were silenced with guns. Thousands were arrested and dozens killed.

When Waldemar Fydrych and Piotr Adamcio wandered through Lodz months later, the streets were eerily quiet. The only sign of the mass unrest that had taken place there were the many white patches on walls where anti-government graffiti had been painted over by the authorities. It was precisely those patches that the two young men were after.