"I am the last one"

There is the Jewish town and consequences of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution; there is decline of the era of positivism and return of the romantic conception of national independence; the Polish Legions and the First World War; the newly industrialized Łódź from the famous film The Promised Land and the red flags of desperate workers; the “glass houses” of renowned novelist Stefan Żeromski; the light and dark sides of the interwar period; half a century of struggling for independence; the saga of the London emigration; the failure in the continuation of Poland's Second Republic; and references to the traditions of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS).

Łódź – the Polish Manchester – the city of great careers and great tragedies. Lidia Ciołkosz recalls: "I lived in Łódź, where human misery was so visible that even children understood it"

She has been inspired by the socialists fighting for national independence. Three portraits hung over her bed: first of the martyr of independence Emilia Plater, then of national leader Józef Piłsudski and novelist Stefan Żeromski.  Lidia Ciołkosz recalled that her driving force has always been the social sensibility she inherited from her mother and learned from Polish literature.

In 1918, Poland regains its independence. Older and younger generations take up the effort of rebuilding independent Poland. Lidia Kahan belongs to the youngest active generation. She leaves her home, Łódź, and moves to Cracow, the city she'd dreamed of. There, she officially leaves the Jewish religious community and enrolls the PPS party. Cracow is one of the political centers of restored Poland. Many politicians were active there, their experience dating back to the times of the liberal Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Polish Legions are also linked with Cracow.

Lidia Ciołkosz: "One day, at the seminar about the aesthetics of Słowacki [the 19th century poet], a student, Agatstein, made a speech. Everyone could notice his slight Jewish accent. His debate opponent, Tadeusz Bielecki, one of the leaders of the nationalist movement, begun with a malicious remark about this. Chrzanowski interrupted him, saying that this is not a student rally and such behavior is forbidden.”

The Polish Socialist Party [PPS] would become the entire life of Lidia Ciołkosz. Her efforts in its Student Section quickly made her one of the leading activists.  Lidia Ciołkosz is active in the party and in organizations linked with it, especially in Society of Workers University and Workers’ Society of Children Friends.

"I took up a work in a club room for children in the Workers’ House in Podgórze, run by the Friends of Children Association [TPD], later changed in 1926 into the Workers’ Society of Children Friends [RTPD]. The club rooms were dedicated to children who were unable to do their homework at home. They worked in the club room, supervised by an educator, then they were given a meal and later they played. The association also ran holiday camps in pretty Kamesznica by the Soła River, where I worked for several seasons. I recall that 'my children' in Podgórze built a lovely doll house all by themselves, Later, a special delegation transported it for Christmas to Kamesznica for kindergarteners at a winter camp."

Fearing a right-wing coup d’état and still remembering the events of 1923, when on orders of the ministers from Wincenty Witos’ government, Kraków workers were fired upon – the Polish Socialist Party supports the coup d’état led by Józef Piłsudski, its former member. Shortly afterwards, Ciołkosz removed the portrait of Marshal Piłsudski and hung a picture of the prophetic novelist Stefan Żeromski.

The May Coup in 1926 led by Józef Piłsudski – a former PPS member – divided the left-wing movement. Opinions on the Marshal's policies destroyed many old friendships. Not only supporters of Piłsudski, such as former prime minister, Jędrzej Moraczewski, abandoned the Polish Socialist Party. The leftists did the same. Wanda Wasilewska, daughter of a known PPS activist, Leon Wasilewski, amongst them. The 1930s saw the rise of the “unanimous” tendencies  in the party: many activists wanted an alliance with the communists. The lack of popular consent and the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party stopped this idea in the starting blocks.PPS tried another strategy - participation in a wide alliance of the parties opposing Marshal Piłsudski under the name of Centrolew - but it dissipated after the 1930 election.

Along with social and political work, the Ciołkosz family is raising their son, Andrzej. He shares good and bad moments in the life of the two oppositionists.

The alliance between the Polish Socialist Party and its former member and leader, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, didn’t last long. The conflict deepened soon after parliament elections in 1928, when Ignacy Daszyński, legendary PPS leader, became marshal of parliament.At this time, Adam Ciołkosz was not only a MP, but also a de-facto leader of socialists in Kraków. In 1930, this city saw the founding congress of Centrolew – a coalition of socialists, peasant activists and chadeks, in Alliance against the ruling Sanacja regime. Adam Ciołkosz played a crucial role along with Ignacy Daszyński, Wincenty Witos, Herman Liberman and Karol Popiel. In summer 1930, as a result of Marshal Piłsudski's decision, President Ignacy Mościcki dissolves both Parliament and Senate.

In the beginning of 1930, important leaders of the opposition, no longer protected by parliamentary immunity, wind up in military prison for anti-government activities. The place of detention is Brest on the Bug River, where they are subjected to different forms of persecution. After Adam has been sentenced to imprisonment and later arrested (from November 1933 to September 1934), she runs the PPS organization in the Małopolska region.

Ciołkosz and other PPS leaders march at the front of the major strike in Kraków in 1936. The pacification results in deaths of some participants. There are also other victims, killed in Lviv and during the peasants' strike. Lidia Ciołkosz recalls: "After the funeral of the people killed [in the massacre of the workers in the "Semperit" factory] District Worker's Committee of PPS created a Committee of Care and Help to "Semperit" victims. I have been choosen the president of this committee."

In 1938, during a manifestation along the escarpment at Warsaw Citadel, Adam Ciołkosz and PPS members from Tarnów ejected participants who sung communist songs. – Many of Polish socialists, including Kazimierz Pużak, will later become victims of the communists. Others, such as Józef Cyrankiewicz, will join their side. A number of the socialists will remain in exile.

"Priority was given to children of trade-union members, children of the unemployed and the homeless. We also took children of prison inmates, including communists". - Apart from politics, the Polish Socialist Party was involved chiefly in  pro-social activities. It organized social clubs, club rooms, libraries of the Youth Organization of the Workers' University Association, summer camps and day camps of the Workers’ Society of Children Friends. Those initiatives were available for worker families regardless of party affiliation of the parents.

At the outbreak of war in 1939, Lidia Ciołkosz belongs to the PPS leadership. In summer, she runs a camp of the Workers Association of Children Friends. When mobilization was proclaimed, her husband, Adam Ciołkosz – a Polish Army reservist – was not accepted due to his court sentences for political crimes. The outbreak of war imposed on Lidia Ciołkosz and her husband a choice: to stay in the country or to leave?

Lidia and her son flee the USSR by the Baltic countries. They go from Sweden to France, where they meet with Adam. After the capitulation of the French, they flee together to Great Britain. In London, Adam Ciołkosz enters the National Council – the parliament of the Polish government in exile.The Ciołkoszs brought to London not only a message from the Polish socialists, but also from representatives of Ukrainian and Belarusian factions.

Polish emigrants including Lidia Ciołkosz faced a handful of difficult dilemmas in 1945. Return or remain? Rebuild Poland ruined by occupiers? Fall into clutches of henchman of the new system? Find a new place within it and feel like a co-founder of the new communist Poland? In 1945 nothing seemed clear and certain. For a Polish socialist, the situation was even more complicated. The existence of an exiled socialist without Polish workers seemed an untenable idea in view of the party’s heritage. Nevertheless, many decided to remain in exile.

One of the leading activists of PPS in exile was Herman Lieberman, former president of the Regional Workers’ Committee in Przemyśl and a prisoner at Brest. Despite his conflicts with the Ciołkoszs, they saw him as a figure similar to Ignacy Daszyński and Bolesław Limanowski. Lieberman was the first PPS activist decorated with the Order of the White Eagle.

"Adam and I didn’t think about returning [to Poland]. We were also against the return of Stanisław Mikołajczyk [prime minister of the government in exile]. We had a beef with those who were returning to take governmental or administrative posts or to act in factions created under communist control. Their return justified the betrayal of the Allies. Instead, we were aware of the fact that factions in Poland were in completely different situation. We knew that society would have to adapt to Yalta decisions and at least try to act according to the new laws".

Despite being overloaded by earning money (mostly as a book editor) and by political activity, Lidia Ciołkosz found time for her own journalistic and academic writing.The opus magnum of the Ciołkosz couple – Outline of the History of Polish Socialism – remained unfinished. The major work completed by Lidia Ciołkosz was Polish Journalism in Exile, 1940–1960.Ciołkosz was also an editor for Aleksander Wat, Stanisław Kościałkowski and other authors. She lectured in many exile centers; however, she wasn’t recognized as an academic by many. The Ciołkoszs should be credited with consolidating in our memory the Polish independent and socialist.

The Polish exile community in Great Britain was the largest diaspora of a politic nature in the Polish nation's history. According to propaganda from the People's Republic (PRL), the life of Poles in exile meant moral degradation and unprecedented luxury. The reality was very different.

Lidia Ciołkosz is active in the Polish Socialist Party in exile, working in collaboration with such institutions as Radio Free Europe, the Literary Institute in Paris, the Polish Institute and the Sikorski Museum. The Polish Socialist Party in exile was one among many political parties. Poles from different countries, workers and intelligentsia belonged to it. It had a widespread support among Polish political émigrés and in the diaspora in the U.S. and France.

In 1960, as a result of a political conflict within the PPS, Ciołkosz and her husband were removed from the party. The schism between the Ciołkoszs and the PPS would last for 20 years. Only at the funeral of Adam would the party flag reappear.

Lidia Ciołkosz recalls: "We went [to the U.S.] invited by the Association of Polish Socialists, with whom Adam had collaborated closely since the war. We received an invitation from the Association of Polish Socialists and the Congress of Canadian Polonia. But it was primarily a political trip, because Adam couldn’t do things another way. He had many meetings, conversations, speeches, press conferences, university lectures, press and radio interviews, and even a TV interview by the newly founded TV station."

One of the important tasks of Adam and Lidia Ciołkosz was to convince the Western public opinion to continue their support for the Polish pursuit of independence. As they had tried to bring attention to Poland from the British Labor Party during the war, they tried the same in the Socialist International.

Lidia Ciołkosz was in contact also with the oppositionists from "Solidarity". Many of them visited her in London: "Anna Walentynowicz came to me, introduced by Janusz Onyszkiewicz, and talking to her impressed me very much, perhaps because she resembled pre-war PPS activists from the factories. Joanna and Andrzej Gwiazda came to me, as well as Leszek Moczulski with his wife, Zofia and Zbigniew Romaszewski, Czesław Bielecki, Kornel Morawiecki, Władysław Frasyniuk, Waldemar Kuczyński, prof. Jan Kielanowski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Antoni Macierewicz, Piotr Naimski, Witold Lis Olszewski. [...] They were, therefore, people with different political and ideologic views, often contradictory to mine. [...] But owing th them, thanks to them, Poland has been nearer to me."

"For all those years, we dreamt about returning to Poland. But it came so late, that only very few of us, elderly people, can return for good. So many people didn’t make it, and they missed Poland so terribly. I am lucky that Poland has regained freedom, that I may go there from time to time. If I only had the necessary strength!"