Again, lustration has become a hot issue of political debates and discussions throughout Poland. What contributed to it was the fact that a list of persons who cooperated or were recruited for cooperation with the Security Service (Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa) during the communist period has been taken out of the Institute of National Remembrance.
The above mentioned list contains over 160,000 names. Bronislaw Wildstein, a journalist, an ex-commentator of a widely read daily newspaper “Rzeczpospolita” – admitted that he took the list out of the Institute in the end of January 2005. Earlier, the list was available only in Institute´s archive – now it has been published in the Internet by “unknown individuals”.
On “Wildstein´s list” (as it is commonly named) there are only first names, names and numbers of case files; therefore, a few days after the information about the list appeared in the media, a number of people with popular names, who found their names on the list, began to queue in Warsaw branch of the Institute. As the list is a mixture of names of proven informers of the Security Service and those who rejected offers of collaboration, many innocent people have attracted public odium. The list has divided also journalists and politicians.
The Helsinki Committee – in an open letter to the Head of the Institute, Prof. Leon Kieres – called for publication of an appropriate list provided with a foreword “which would explain the nature of the list, the categories of the persons listed there, and state clearly that not every person on the list was an officer or informant of the communist secret services”.
Neither comprehensive lustration nor critical review of the previous regime have been made in Poland. The present law on lustration affects only persons who hold prominent positions in the State authorities or who run for the Parliament – they have to file a “vetting declaration” – i.e. to answer a question whether they collaborated with the Communist secret services. On the other hand, a draft bill on the Institute of National Remembrance entitles persons harmed by communist secret services to access their files. Present situation will probably end up with amendments to both laws.
