Bronislaw geremek
1552 mots
7 pages
BRONISŁAW GEREMEK: THE EUROPEAN POLE. Bronisław Geremek, a medievist historian and a polish politician, was born in Warsaw on March 6, 1932 and he died on July 13, 2008 in a car crash. His death had touched a lot of european people with regard to his life completely devoted to his country and to Europe, with regard to his european conviction that he had inspired with the early history of Poland. Some people said that it was the death of the last european conscience. Indeed, I have choosen this character because of his political commitment for Poland and through this, to Europe. He completely embodies the fight for peace, freedom in the east european countries, and the reunification of the continent. He is the founding father of the « New Europe ». He was a complete european, and a committed intellectual. He was also really linked to the french intellectual circles in Paris. He knew Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sartre and was deeply in the intellectual circle of the La Sorbonne university. I have also choosen him because his personal history is very associated to the polish and european history as we will see. So through his personal history, we will run accross a short and special part of the polish history: as an active actor of the democratic transition in Poland, he had taken a huge part in the liberation from the communist yoke in the Solidarność years.
First, B.Geremek was 7 when he spend his childhood in the Warsaw ghetto with his family. He said that it was a terrible experience, and he tried to forget the memory of this period because he wanted to forget this period which was out of his life experience. His school was the life and only the books. His first experience as a committed was when he had screamed in the front of the british ambassy: « Long live to Great Britain » which joined Poland against Germany. In the ghetto he met Janusz Korczak, a writer who helped children. This meeting was the beginning of his life because Korczak said him that if