The Memory Politics of a Poisoned Past: The Impact of the Murder of Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki on Popular Memory

• In Event: Religious Resistance to Communist Authority from De-Stalinization to Glasnost and Perestroika

Abstract

In the spring of 2023, after a renewal of the investigation of the cause of death of Fr. Franciszek Blachnicki, one of the most important religious figures of postwar Poland and the founder of the mass movement Oasis, the Institute of National Memory (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej/IPN) reported that new forensic evidence demonstrated he was poisoned. As part of an ongoing investigation into who poisoned him, the authorities sought to interview Jolanta Gontarczyk, who, with her husband had been acting as undercover agents/saboteurs of the ministry of Fr. Blachnicki in his place of exile in Carlsburg, West Germany for several years prior to his murder, and was among the last person to see him alive prior to his death on February 27th, 1987. In this paper I will examine why IPN pursued this case, how the Gontarczyks were remembered in the PRL and their work in Poland after the collapse of Communism, as well as how evidence of his murder is playing out in the memory of those who worked with or benefitted from his ministry.

Author

• Timothy David Curp, Ohio U