Gdansk, Solidarity Monument

In Solidarity Square in Gdansk, the Monument of the Fallen Shipyard Workers (shipyard workers killed by security forces during a strike in 1970) is designed to resemble both ships' anchors and the Christian cross.

In 1989 in a speech at this monument, president George Bush said, “… above your streets a graceful monument rose, in the tradition of our own Statue of Liberty, to become a symbol recognized around the world as a beacon of hope.”

Lines from a poem written by Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet, Nobel laureate (1980) and UC Berkeley professor (1960 to 1978) emeritus, appear on this famous monument in Gdansk. "You who have harmed simple man, mocking him with your laughter, you kill him, someone else will be born, and your deeds and words will be written down'.

This was written in secret in 1950 when he was working as a cultural attaché at the Polish embassy in Washington.