Bronislaw Geremek: An Appreciation
Bronislaw Geremek, who played a crucial role ending communist rule in Poland and then guiding Poland to democracy, NATO and the European Union, was killed in an automobile accident July 13. His was a public life to celebrate.
Born in Warsaw, Geremek escaped from the Warsaw ghetto when he was 11and remained in hiding until the end of the war. His father was murdered at Auschwitz. In August 1980, he was one of 64 Polish intellectuals to sign a document supporting Lech Walesa’s striking shipyard workers. Geremek became one of the giants of Solidarity. He was imprisoned for a year after martial law was declared in 1981.
I first met Bronislaw Geremek a few years later when Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead invited Lech Walesa and Solidarity’s senior advisors to the home of John Davis, U.S. Ambassador to Poland, to show American support for Solidarity. We had waited for hours for Walesa and his delegation to arrive; we worried that they had been arrested on the way to the Ambassador’s residence. There was a knock on the door and Walesa, Geremek, and other leaders of Solidarity filled the living room with their courage and hope. They had a vision for ending communism in their country. They believed in the principals of the Helsinki Final Act and the UN Declaration of Human Rights. They said America was a beacon to guide their own struggle. We talked, we listened, we laughed and we were inspired. I practiced that evening my first (and still only) two words of Polish: wszystko mozliwe — “all things are possible.”
On our next trip to Poland, we went to Gdansk to see Walesa in his home city. During that visit, and on each of our subsequent visits, we became ever more convinced that Solidarity would defeat authoritarianism and that Poland would some day be again a free country.
Bronislaw Geremek was one of the leaders of the Roundtable Negotiations that brought Solidarity to power. He served as Poland’s Foreign Minister from 1997 to 2000. These were the same years I had the honor to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, which brought me in close contact with Minister Geremek on numerous occasions. As an Assistant Secretary, I was not a person of much rank, but I will always remember the grace and kindness with which Foreign Minister Geremek treated me.
During his years as foreign minister, Geremek served simultaneously in 1998 as the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where he made ending the wars in the Balkans and stopping the murder in Kosovo continuing commitments. He negotiated Poland’s entry into NATO and stood with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and leaders from Hungary and the Czech Republic at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, in March 1999 to celebrate Poland’s transformation from a Warsaw Pact vassal to a member of the world’s most successful alliance. When NATO heads of state and government met in Washington in April 1999 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of NATO’s creation, Bronislaw Geremek was there not just to reap the benefits of NATO membership but to see Poland join the military effort to end Milosevic’s killing in Kosovo.
During and after his service as foreign minister, Bronislaw Geremek’s opinions were both widely sought and carefully considered. I last had a chance to visit with Geremek at the NATO Summit in Riga, Latvia, in 2006. We marveled that NATO was now meeting in the capital of a Baltic state. Who would ever have believed that they, too, would be free so soon? At least one friend had been urging him to write his memoirs. Sadly, we will now never have his personal recollections of his accomplishments, but we will have our memories of what he did for the cause of freedom.
Marc Grossman is a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group. He was Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs at the Department of State 2001-2005. He is a member of GMF’s Board of Trustees.