Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Adam Michnik was born in Warsaw to a communist family but would later become a leading opponent of the Polish communist regime. Michnik was removed from his position as a lecturer in history at Warsaw University in 1967 as part of an anti-Jewish purge and arrested the next year for organizing student protests. From here, his opposition to the communist apparatus in Poland developed, and he eventually took on a leadership role in the Solidarity Movement that helped topple the communist government in 1989. A member of the Sejm from 1989 to 1991, he is now well-known both as the editor of Gazeta Wyborcza and as a historian of left-wing movements in Eastern Europe.