Jan Olszewski, soldier of the Grey Regiments, Prime Minister, MP, lawyer, defender in political trials, publicist. A great man.
He said of his government (1991-1992):
I believe that it was the first attempt to reverse the course of Polish history, which was determined by the assumptions of people who were fully aware in the 1980s that the communist system could not be maintained in the form in which it had existed so far...
From our side it was the first attempt to reverse this situation. An attempt to prevent the building of an oligarchic state on the foundations of the People's Republic of Poland. An attempt to undertake the task of building a democratic civil state. In my opinion, at that time the attempt was already at least two years late. Therefore it had minimal chances for realization. But it had to be made. The second opportunity came only 15 years later (the Law and Justice government of 2005-07), and the third one is today (the Law and Justice government of 2015).
Jan Olszewski was accompanied on his last journey by his relatives, the President, the Speakers of the Sejm and Senate, the Prime Minister, parliamentarians, veterans...
He was buried at the Military Powazki cemetery in Warsaw.
KPRM: Friday - tribute to Jan Olszewski is paid by the Speaker of the Sejm Marek Kuchciński, Photo: Lukasz Blasikiewicz
On Saturday, before noon, the coffin containing the body of Jan Olszewski was brought to the Archcathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist, where a funeral mass was celebrated.
Soldiers of the Home Army, Warsaw insurgents and anti-communist opposition activists bid farewell to Prime Minister Olszewski at the Warsaw Uprising Monument
Photo: Rafał Zambrzycki/ Sejm
An attempt to build a civic state - Piotr Woyciechowski interviewed by Jan Olszewski
