Maciej Jerzy Kublikowski

Died in Poland on 27 April 2024.

Between 1984 and 2000 Maciej lived in Auckland, New Zealand. He was our colleague and an active member of the Solidarity Organization in New Zealand, the Polish Club in Auckland, and the Auckland Polish Association.

Maciej was one of the organizers and the first Solidarity trade union leader in Siedlce, Poland.

Maciej was born in Siedlce on 19 September 1945. He finished his studies at the Teachers Training College (Studium Nauczycielskie) in his home town, then obtained a diploma in the field of teaching special-need-youth at the Special Education Institute in Warsaw, where he graduated in 1969.

While studying in Warsaw, he took part in the famous student manifestation at Warsaw University on 8 March 1968. This manifestation was confronted and brutally crushed by communist authorities, which deployed large riot police force units. Maciej received a few club blows in a scuffle, but otherwise escaped unharmed. Swiftly, he went to his home town of Siedlce and helped to organize a protest march there a few days later.

After graduation, Maciej worked in the Correction Facilities for young people in various places in Poland for several years, and in the late 1970s was employed as a human resources specialist in Siedlce. In 1979, he became a training officer in the town’s large tool manufacturing plant, VIS. In September 1980, immediately after the registration of the Solidarity trade union in Gdańsk (August 1980), he started to organise a free trade union in his VIS factory, and was elected the first Solidarity trade union leader there. As a representative of Siedlce, he became a member of the headquarters of the Solidarity trade union Mazowsze Region (based in Warsaw). His portfolio there included information exchange within the Union.

On 13 December 1981, on the night when martial law was imposed by the Jaruzelski military regime, he was arrested and, with many other Solidarity colleagues, put into prison. He spent nearly a year in various jails without being charged or given a court trial. In July 1982, he was brutally beaten by the prison guards and needed a month of hospitalisation. Released in November 1982, it took him a further two months to recover his strength from the months of cramped confinement. Authorities marked him as “not-to-be-employed” and to get his job back, he had to win a battle in Warsaw’s employment court.

He again became involved in “Solidarity”, this time under-ground, as officially the trade union was deregistered and banned. He helped to edit and print the independent under-ground newspaper “Wiadomości Podlaskie”. He manufactured and distributed stickers with “Solidarity” logos and pro-freedom slogans, but was under constant surveillance, and the harassment by the communist regime secret police made life for him and his family increasingly difficult.

In April 1984 Maciej and his family emigrated to New Zealand.

In Auckland, he joined a group of Polish emigrants active in local organization “Solidarity in New Zealand Inc.” Together they raised funds to support Solidarity and other pro-independence groups in Poland. They managed to secure and send to Polish relief organizations a supply of a medical drug to treat stomach ailments resulting from poor nutrition, a condition frequently affecting many interned and imprisoned people during martial law.

In 1985, Maciej hosted an exhibition of photographs, independent publications, and prison artefacts that he managed to save and smuggle out on his release from internment and later brough out of Poland. This exhibition was held at Auckland University, and later at the Dom Polski in Auckland and Wellington, in Inglewood and, in April 1986, at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch.

Maciej wrote a number of articles published in Auckland’s bi-monthly “Solidarity in the Antipodes” and, in years 1987 – 1989, he was the New Zealand and Australian correspondent for “Gazeta Podlaska” a newspaper published in Siedlce.

The installation of a Katyń memorial plaque, unveiled in Auckland Cathedral of St Patrick and St Joseph in 1990, was yet another project Maciej actively supported.

Unfortunately, soon after starting work in Auckland, he lost his left hand in an industrial accident, and remained on an invalid pension. He studied English in the hope that he would be able to work once again with troublesome youngsters.

Amidst the Polish community in Auckland, Maciej was known for his deep knowledge of Polish politics, particularly of the post-communist transformation times. He was also a keen observer of international affairs, including the New Zealand foreign policies. He looked at political events in the scope of what may help Poland regain, keep, and strengthen her independence. In his patriotism and his character, he remained strong and optimistic, and it made him an appreciated and valuable colleague.

In 2000, Maciej returned to Poland. In 2011, he opened a small business offering help with writing applications and petitions. From 2012 he became more involved in pro-independence and democratic initiatives: he joined the citizen-initiated Movement to Control Elections, and became the President of “Gazeta Polska Club” in Siedlce. For a long time, he was also advocating for Siedlce citizens in need via the Intervention Unit (an office where people can complain about injustices done to them by any sort of civic or government authority, or to report any sort of public issue) attached to the office of the local member of Parliament, which then represented the Polish “Law and Justice Party”.

He was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by the Head of the Polish Institute of Remembrance and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity by the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda in 2015.

He will always remain in our hearts and in our memories.

(Sources include: “Niezależna.pl”, “Tygodnik Podlaski”, and archives of the Solidarity in New Zealand Inc.)