Tomasz Wacko, known to his large number of friends both in Norway, Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe, as Tomek, was only 44 years old when he died under terribly tragic circumstances earlier this year. To his premature death, however, there is also an element of almost unbelievably cruel irony. From his years in the then permanently persecuted Polish underground opposition, Tomek had survived numerous clashes with General Jaruzelski´s Police, Army and Security Forces, and also two periods behind bars, during which he became a natural leader for his fellow prisoners of conscience. After fourteen years in Norway, twelve of them spent as a full-time human rights activist, he died at the hands of the Norwegian Police. 

Coming to Norway as a political refugee in 1989, Wacko soon became a leading human rights activist. In the course of the next decade, his reputation as an uncompromising human rights defender grew to the point where he was known practically to everyone engaged in similar activities throughout the civil societies of Central and Eastern Europa. During this time, Wacko befriended and helped thousands of people, either through improving their living conditions locally or by way of enabling them to escape their authorities to find security for themselves and their families elsewhere. To the human rights movement in general, but to the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights in particular, Wacko´s untimely death is an immeasurable loss. The same, of course, goes for his wife Jolanda and the three children she gave him that he leaves behind.  

While there is general agreement throughout the international human rights movement over the importance of bringing those responsible for Tomasz Wacko´s death to justice, such measures cannot and will not redress the tragic loss. Instead, Tomek is already deeply missed. He will never be forgotten.