Polish writers caught up in the secret service

Poland is currently absorbed in debate about the spying activities of the former communist secret service, SB. In her 2005 book "Oblawa" (the hunt), author Joanna Siedlecka describes how the secret service treated writers. She tells Maciej Urbanowski that the heads of the Polish writers' association in particular have avoided looking back at their involvement in the secret service. "Because it was not true that the security service itself spied on and destroyed writers... It was the committees, the leading intellectuals and the establishment who eliminated the rebels and in that way served the purposes of the Secret Service. Mostly, their actions had nothing to do with literature, but everything to do with apartments, power, jobs and travel privileges. Writers who were prepared to collaborate received honours in the People's Republic. They had apartments in the Aleja Roz or Iwicka Street - a marvellous life... Writers destroyed other writers. The SB, the Party or the Interior Ministry only set the rules."

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