Poland [antikvár]

Acknowledgements In 1977 a television company invited me to go to any exotic place in the world to shoot a documentary, and I astonished them by choosing without hesitation:'Poland.' When they asked why, I replied: 'If you look at its geographical and ideological position, you'll see that it must become a focal point within the next decade.' In succeeding years I visited Poland some eight times, traveling to almost every part of the nation. Private sources provided me with a helicopter for the better part of a week. I used to fly at a very low altitude over all of Poland. I was encouraged to visit schools, universities, laboratories, art centers, historical sites, and a tone point I said that what I needed most was to spend some time with a devout Roman Catholic clergyman who spoke English. By good luck I was taken to see the Bishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, with whom I had a series of productive conversations. Later I spent time with Cardinal Wyszynski and Primate Glemp, and through them was allowed to see the workings of a church within a Communist country. By accident I spent a beautiful vacation at Lancut Palace and by design an extended tour to some dozen of Poland's magical castles. lalsospentanequalamountof time in theheavyindustries of Katowice and in the Lenin shipyards at Gdansk. By car I traveled many hundreds of miles to all parts of Poland. In such work I had theguidanceof Edward J. Piszék,an American Pole who, because of his humanitarian interest, had strong ties to Polish affairs, with an entree to almost any facet of Polish life. The car in which I traveled was often driven by his assistant, Stanley Moszuk, a gifted citizen of Poland with a strong knowledge of its art and history. When the timecame in 1979 that I thought of writing a novel about the critical developments in Poland, it was