The act of self-immolation of Ryszard Siwiec in protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia

Ryszard Siwiec (7.03.1909, Dębica – 8.09.1968, Warsaw), Master of Philosophy (Jan Kazimierz University, Lvov). During the WWII he joined the Home Army. After the War he did not want to be a teacher in a school controlled by communists, and started to produce wine. His company was nationalized in 1952, he continued working there but as a legal adviser and chief accountant. Ryszard Siwiec was a convinced opponent of the Communism and the Polish People’s Republic. He committed an act of self-immolation in protest against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. The act took place during the harvest festival on the 10th-Anniversary Stadium in Warsaw, in front of some 100 thousand people. The first information about Siwiec’s self-immolation appeared in the Polish-language media after four months, on the Radio Free Europe.
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