[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 119 (Monday, July 21, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E1508]]
          -A GREAT LEADER LOST: THE DEATH OF BRONISLAW GEREMEK

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 21, 2008

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, it is my sad duty to note the 
death last week of former Polish Foreign Minister and OSCE Chair-in 
Office Bronislaw Geremek, who was killed in a car crash in Poland. I am 
honored to pay tribute to a Polish patriot who had an impact far beyond 
the borders of his native country.
  Born in 1932 to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Bronislaw Geremek was 
fated to confront the two great evils of the twentieth century: Nazism 
and communism. Having survived the first as a child, he later played an 
instrumental role in defeating the second.
  Mr. Geremek trained as an historian a serious scholar specializing in 
the history of medieval France. Indeed, as many obituaries have 
observed, he was the very image of the professional academic, complete 
with pipe and tweeds.
  But it was in politics and political life that he truly made his mark 
and where he has left his legacy. Bronislaw Geremek was a great Polish 
patriot who knew that his country deserved better than the communist 
oppression of the post-war period.
  He protested the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia; he stayed in 
Poland when anti-Semitic purges drove thousands of other Jews away; and 
most of all, he helped build necessary bridges between workers and 
intellectuals. That bond, between these two segments of Polish society, 
enabled Solidarity to become the mass movement it was.
  His imprisonment after the imposition of Martial Law on December 13, 
1981, did not deter him from his struggle to build a truly free and 
democratic Poland. In 1989, he was a member of the historic ``Round 
Table'' that negotiated the peaceful transition of power. In fact, a 
delegation from the Helsinki Commission, that included my good friend, 
and now-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, was in Poland in August 
1989, and watched from the gallery of the Polish parliament when 
Tadeusz Mazowiecki was elected the first non-communist Prime Minister 
in more than four decades. Bronislaw Geremek played a singular role in 
bringing that democratic transition to Poland and the democratic 
transition in Poland helped bring democracy to all of Eastern Europe.
  Bronislaw Geremek subsequently served his country in many ways: as a 
member of Parliament, not only as a Foreign Minister but the Foreign 
Minister who signed the treaty bringing Poland into NATO, and then as a 
member of the European Union Parliament.
  As chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I would especially like to 
note the important role Bronislaw Geremek played when, as Foreign 
Minister, he served as chair-in-office of the OSCE in 1998. Few people 
understood as well the historical role of the Helsinki Accords and he 
brought to that mission an unmatched moral leadership.
  Perhaps most of all, however, Bronislaw Geremek personified the best 
of Eastern Europe's intelligentsia intellectually curious and 
accomplished, outraged by injustice and impelled to resist it despite 
the risks, and possessed of a wry sense of humor that endeared him to 
his colleagues.
  Bronislaw Geremek's time on this earth was not merely full, but 
profoundly consequential. The world is a better place for his having 
lived. We, in the postcommunist-era, are all the beneficiaries of his 
passion, labor and achievements.
  Madam Speaker, may Bronislaw Geremek rest in peace, honored by his 
countrymen and women, remembered fondly and missed by those fortunate 
enough to have been his friends, and invoked as a role model wherever 
brains and courage are sorely needed to face down tyranny.

                          ____________________