The thunder hit a little earlier, in June 1967. My father, a delegate to the Congress of Trade Unions, returned home in a bad condition.

“What happened?,” my worried Mother asked. “Gomułka has made a pogrom speech” he answered. I didn’t know what he meant, but I had never heard him say anything of that sort.

This happened a few weeks after the Six-Day War in the Middle East, which ended in the defeat of the Arabs. All the countries of the Soviet bloc, except Romania, severed diplomatic relations with Israel, calling it an aggressor. Convinced that Polish Jews supported Israel, Gomułka called them a “fifth column within the country” and accused them of collective disloyalty.

My father lay down on the couch, turned to face the wall and continued to lie so, motionless, for a few days.

(Source: Henryk Dasko, Dworzec Gdański. Historia niedokończona [The Gdański Station: An unfinished story]).