Ewa Maria Slaska and „Wyspa“

During the 1980s, the last decade of the People’s Republic of Poland, life was not exactly ideal for citizens who were culturally and socially active. Ewa Maria Slaska was one of the persons who disagreed with the political, economic and above all social situation in Poland. The writer and journalist committed herself to the democratic opposition at an early stage, even before “Solidarność”, and also in the “Solidarność” movement itself. Shortly before, during and after the introduction of martial law in Poland (1981-1983) the situation for opposition activists worsened dramatically. Ewa Maria Slaska also felt the effects. Time and time again her apartment was searched and time and time again her small son was forced to watch her being observed by armed men while she was working. In the end she decided to emigrate to the West.

Her original aim was to go to the USA. The first stop on her long journey was West Berlin. But shortly before her schedule flight to America she decided to remain in West Berlin. Here she met friends who helped her; here she met people who cared for her well-being. Since Ewa Maria Slaska continued to take an active interest in social and cultural life a television team visited her to interview her about the situation of Polish migrants in West Berlin. After the interview was over Slaska began to ask them questions and in this way she learnt that in Berlin there was an open broadcasting channel, the “Offener Kanal Berlin”, or OKB. This had been financed and created by the state of Berlin since 1985, and anyone who wanted to work there could do so. Hence the television project quickly became an important medium for all those people who had no access to public or private media. After taking a practical course and passing an examination Ewa Maria Slaska and her then partner Grzegorz Ziętkiewicz were qualified to produce programmes for the OKB. They were allowed to broadcast whatever they wanted. The idea for the TV magazine “Wyspa” from Poles for Poles, was born and Ewa Maria Slaska could no longer wait to produce and broadcast the magazine.

The first edition of “Wyspa” went out to the television screens of West Berlin in autumn 1985. The magazine had a length of one hour and for the most part contained three or four interviews and features. The authors and their cameras mostly went to outside locations, places where Polish life could be filmed. They were interested in current themes that were emotionally important for Poles in West Berlin, but also in people who were important for Polish life in Berlin. It is possible to split the themes roughly into three main areas: social, cultural and political. Amongst the first people they interviewed were Witold Kamiński, Teresa Nawrot, Janina Szarek, Helena Bohle-Szacka, Leszek Szaruga, Tomasz Jastrun and Lech Dymarski. On one occasion “Wyspa” took on a completely different format when a Polish puppet theatre took up a whole edition. “The Polish Puppet and Mask Theatre” (Polski Teatr Lalki i Maski) featuring Helena Tamba-Kowalik and Andrzej Kowalik, Jacek Głaszcz and Krzysztof Zastawny had been performing regularly since 1985 and continued to do so until the mid-1990s in the Theater Cafe at Paulstrasse 22 in Berlin, where they were visited by Ewa Maria Slaska and Grzegorz Ziętkiweicz and their camera team. Thus “Wyspa” was able to show the ensemble performing the whole of the Polish fairytale “Szewczyk Dratewka” (The Little Shoemaker Dratewka) to the audiences gathered in the cafe and in front of their television screens.

The magazine went out once a month. Every new edition was broadcast on the first Friday of the month. After that the magazine was repeated three times. All in all there were 16 editions of “Wyspa”, fifteen of which were made with the active participation of Ewa Maria Slaska. The non-profitmaking project mainly existed from the self-sacrifice of its authors. For personal reasons and because of the financial insecurity involved the TV magazine was forced to close in early 1988, and after this there was no longer any Polish language magazine in the OKB. It goes without saying that the end of “Wyspa” did not mean the end of Ewa Maria Slaska’s creative work. Even today she is still engaged in a number of different socio-cultural projects. Currently she works as the administrator and chief editor of a blog mainly dealing with cultural and social matters in German, Polish and English (ewamaria2013) and parallel to this she is working on a book entitled “My Family – the Lives of Eight Generations of Assimilated Jews in Poland and Elsewhere”.

“Das bittere Wort Exil - Ewa Maria, 38, aus Polen“ (engl: “The bitter word ‘Exile’ – Ewa Maria (38) from Poland”: A documentary film by Helga Reidemeister produced in 1987 by the SFB broadcasting station in West Berlin. The film is a unique document about the life of Polish immigrants in West Berlin. Above all it shows the problems of Polish women and the way they organised themselves in the divided city at the end of the 1980s. Ewa Maria Slaska narrates the film in person, thereby giving us an intimate portrait of a Polish woman in West Berlin. The press release to the film in 1987 clearly reveals that, at the time, the SFB broadcasting station had a good idea of the incredible documentary dimension of the film. It reads: “The film is a subjective report of the experiences of a Polish writer and journalist who has been living in West Berlin for almost three years and, thanks to her journalistic and social commitment, is not simply trying to survive as a lone warrior but also wants to throw some light on the “Polish milieu” in West Berlin. The film shows the personal difficulties encountered by a courageous woman, her difficult struggle to exist, her marital problems and her problems with her children – and also the paths one has to take in exile in order to realise one’s own dreams and aims.”

Adam Gusowski, May 2015

 

Biographical data :

 

• Ewa Maria Slaska was born on 2nd September 1949 in Sopot (Poland).
• 1967 - 1968    Reads Polish studies at the Educational High school in Danzig
• 1968 - 1970    Reads ethnography and ethnology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan
• 1970 - 1974    Reads archaeology at the Adam Mickiewicz Universität in Poznan
• 1974 - 1976    Lecturer in Early History at the Adam Mickiewicz Universität in Poznan
• from 1974      Freelance journalist
• 1979                Receives a grant for cultural workers in Rome (Italy)
• since 1979     Actively involved in the Polish opposition movement
• 1981                Editor of “My” (We) the weekly magazine published by “Solidarność“ in Danzig
• 1981                 Literary book debut “Portret z ametystem“ (Portrait with Amethyst)
• 1983 - 1985   PR officer for Format, the Association of Designers in Danzig
• 1985                Emigrates to West Berlin
• 1985                Her novel “Dochodzenie“ (Investigation) is published by the renowned exile publisher “Kultura“ in Paris
• 1986                Her application for asylum is granted
• 1986                Receives an artists grant from the Berlin Senate
• 1985 - 1988   Founder and head of the Polish independent television programme “Wyspa“/the Island) for the Open Channel Berlin
• 1987 - 1994   Social worker for the German Red Cross in Berlin
• 1994                Receives an artists grant from the Berlin Senate; project coordinator for the German-Polish Society; founder of the Society for the Promotion of German-Polish Literature “WIR“; editor-in-chief of the literature edition “WIR“ (till 2013)
• since 1994    Freelance journalist, translator and project organiser
• 1995 - 1996   Lecturer in life skills for the Humanist Association Germany
• 1995 - 1999   Worker and head of the project “German-Polish Poets’ Steamship”
• 1998 - 1999   Project coordinator – New Society for Literature (Poets’ Steamship, Fairytale Days)
• 1999                Regular employment with SFB 4 MultiKulti in Polish and with the newspaper “Kurier Szczecinski“; receives her first UNESCO grant for writers – stay in the Writers and Translators House in Rhodes (Greece)
• 2000 - 2001  Trains as a lecturer in New Media at the German Business Further Training Academy
• 2000                Second UNESCO grant for writers – in Rhodes (Greece)
• 2001                Works on the project “Coming-Going-Staying” in Gubin; third UNESCO grant for writers – stay in the Writers and Translators House in Visby (Sweden)
• 2001-2006     Project head, PR and web design for the Kreuzberg Musical Action group
• 2003                6th German-Polish journalist prize; fourth UNESCO grant for writers in Rhodes (Greece)
• 2004                Organises the Polish Days within the framework of the Sixth International Literature Festival Berlin (ilb); helps create the art project “StarterKompakt – Polish for Beginners“
• 2005                PR coordinator for the German-Polish project “Paths to the Future. An archaeological Festival in the museum village of- Düppel” - a project for the German-Polish year 2005/2006
• 2006                Her novel “Piękne dni w Visby“ (Fine Days in Visby) is published by “Prószynski & Ska“ in Warsaw
• 2007 - 2009   Project worker at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin
• 2007 - 2014   Project worker for “Urban Partner Stettin”, and deputy chair
• 2008 - 2010   Evaluator in the integration project for SPI-Berlin and the German Ministry of Labour and Social Services
• 2009 - 2011   Coordinator for the federal project “Diversity feels fine”
• 2012 - 2013   Translator for Bertelsmann and Chal-Tec
• since 2012       Administrator and editor-in-chief of a blog mainly dealing with cultural and social matters in German, Polish and English (ewamaria2013); actively involved in the work of a working party on “Church Forced Labour Camps”
• 2013                Worker and writer for the exhibition entitled “The Beauty of the Blind”; curator of the German-Polish exhibition “Polish Graves in Berlin and German Graves in Stettin” (Berlin June/July and Stettin August/September)
• 2014                Work on her book “My Family – the Lives of Eight Generations of Assimilated Jews in Poland and Elsewhere”; academic work (lectures, congress appearances, publications) on the theme of Poland and Jews in the First World War