clare toeniskoetter Am I 14? Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. katrin bennhold No, take your time. No rush, no rush.

katrin bennhold

We started this trip by going to France where we spent time with these people who were in the middle of this loose movement without a leader, a movement that’s dying and that, for the moment, has no hope of really running things in France.

airplane announcement Well, first of all, apologies for the late departure of this flight —

katrin bennhold

We then went on to Italy, where the frustration of people has been channeled into another movement, but one that has been successful at actually being elected into government. But it’s only part of a government, part of a coalition government. They’re not running things yet.

airplane safety video Adjust the headband —

katrin bennhold

In Poland, a nationalist government has actually been in power for four years. And we’re here to sort of see what that does to institutions, what that does to democracy. We want to see what that looks like.

[music box playing]

katrin bennhold

From The New York Times, this is “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. Today: Poland. It’s Thursday, June 13. So we go to Warsaw, Poland’s capital, the biggest city in the country.

clare toeniskoetter You guys want to go in this cab?

katrin bennhold

We grab a taxi, and we head over to see this newspaper.

katrin bennhold Gazeta, is it Wyborcza? speaker Wyborcza. katrin bennhold Wyborcza. Wyborcza.

katrin bennhold

The Gazeta Wyborcza.

katrin bennhold Thank you. lynsea garrison What did you say? We’re here? katrin bennhold We’re here.

katrin bennhold

We went inside to ask for Jaroslaw Kurski, the deputy editor.

jaroslaw kurski Hello. clare toeniskoetter I’m Clare. jaroslaw kurski Hi.

katrin bennhold

Most people call him Jarek.

katrin bennhold Jarek, c’est moi. [SPEAKING FRENCH] jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING FRENCH]

katrin bennhold

So I don’t speak Polish. Jarek is not super comfortable in English. So actually this whole meeting had been arranged in French, and we ended up speaking this strange mix of the three.

katrin bennhold Thank you for making time. Should we go and sit? jaroslaw kurski You’re welcome.

katrin bennhold

So Jarek walks us down the hallway. He’s this tall, composed, pretty formal guy in his mid-50s. And we take the elevator up to an office. The newsroom at this point is pretty empty, because it’s late at night. And we sort of all huddle on this couch in the corner of the office. And — and I’m suddenly reminded of this thing that my dad used to tell me when I was growing up in Germany.

katrin bennhold My father used to say that Polish is the language of freedom. jaroslaw kurski Yeah. It was true. During the ‘80s, yes, it was — it was absolutely true.

katrin bennhold

And that launched him into the story of Poland’s history, his paper’s history and his own history, which we realized are all linked.

jaroslaw kurski We were the witness of many, many events.

[music]

archived recording Tonight, the politics and the practical problems of feeding Poland.

katrin bennhold

So when Jarek was a kid in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Poland was a Communist country. It was part of the Soviet bloc.

archived recording One month of martial law has not solved Poland’s acute food crisis, and private Western agencies are rushing to help.

katrin bennhold

And at the time, the Polish economy was struggling. Wages were stagnating. The media was censored. And a lot of people longed for more freedom.

jaroslaw kurski The police shot people, and there was the victims and the dead.

katrin bennhold

And then this movement started, this movement against Communism. It was called Solidarity.

archived recording The new Solidarity movement was born last summer.

katrin bennhold

It started with a group of shipyard workers in Gdansk, a city on the Baltic Sea, Jarek’s hometown.

archived recording When striking workers forced the Communist government to grant many concessions.

katrin bennhold

Jarek was a teenager when all this was going on. And he and his younger brother Jacek saw all of this happening right in front of them as this movement was growing. And they took part in it.

jaroslaw kurski I take my bicycle and put the cigarettes and sandwich to the people who participated in the strike.

katrin bennhold

They also wrote for this illegal student newspaper, an anti-Communist student newspaper. And later they wrote for another newspaper linked to the Solidarity movement itself. They did everything they could to support the movement. And all across Poland, the support for this movement, for Solidarity, was growing.

archived recording Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, Poland’s Solidarity union was legalized, a move that will end the Communist monopoly of power.

katrin bennhold

And in the end, the movement prevailed. Communism fell, and Poland became a democracy.

jaroslaw kurski Poland was the most free country in the Soviet blocs.

katrin bennhold

And at that important moment in Poland, the Gazeta Wyborcza was born.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

This was Poland’s first free non-Communist newspaper since World War II.

katrin bennhold Have you been at the newspaper from the start? When it first started 30 years ago? Have you been here? jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Jarek started working there just a few years after the newspaper started.

katrin bennhold As a reporter or as an editor? jaroslaw kurski As a reporter.

katrin bennhold

And Jarek said the Gazeta Wyborcza had become the voice of a liberal democratic Poland. And as the paper was growing, so was Poland’s economy. And then in 2004, Poland joined the European Union. And this helped develop the country even more.

jaroslaw kurski For example. katrin bennhold You have the European flag in your house? jaroslaw kurski Yeah, in my house.

katrin bennhold

And once Poland joined the E.U., the economy improved. Life improved for a lot of people. The country opened up. Wages went up. People could travel. But there was another narrative that started to play out across the country, especially in rural areas. In the countryside and in smaller towns, the transition from Communism to capitalism had proved particularly painful. These state-run businesses and farms had closed down with the fall of Communism, and there was often mass unemployment for a period of time. And a lot of people there felt left behind. These people have been watching their country change. They’ve been watching as church attendance rates have been falling, as gender equality and L.G.B.T. rights and other sort of liberal ideas are taking hold. They worry about their familiar old way of life changing. They worry about their values being diluted. They worry about losing what it is to be Polish, and they blame the E.U.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And out of this frustration, a new political party was born, Law and Justice, or PiS, P-I-S, in Polish. The party promises to represent these people. It’s a message that resonates.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And Jarek’s own brother is one of these people. So Jarek goes into journalism, but his brother pursues a career in politics. And the two drift apart politically.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And in 2015, just as this migrant crisis unfolds in the rest of Europe, this conservative nationalist party wins a majority, and it becomes the first single party to control the government in Poland since the end of Communism. And up until this point, the Gazeta Wyborcza is basically Poland’s main daily newspaper. But Jarek says that once this new party is in power, things start to change almost immediately.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And the first event that he sort of recalled this kind of ominous warning sign was that one day, when he was at work in the newsroom, they were having this office party. There was a singer and a concert. And while this was happening, a priest showed up outside the office, a priest who supported the new government.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And this priest had come to stage an exorcism, an exorcism of the newspaper. He was there to exorcise the devilish spirits of liberalism from the building. And what starts as a kind of bizarre, absurd, almost funny scene becomes increasingly threatening, because the crowd is growing. It’s chanting. And it’s becoming more aggressive.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

It’s chanting about the paper promoting Islamic terrorism, promoting L.G.B.T. rights, promoting a transformation of Polish society. The crowd becomes so threatening, Jarek tells us, the police had to secure the building.

speakers [CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

So very soon after this very public exorcism, Jarek told us that the government started to go directly after the media.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And the first thing they did is they took over the state broadcasters. So radio and television stations that were owned by the state but had previously had editorial independence, kind of like the BBC, were now basically controlled by this government. They came in, they fired journalists, they put in their own, and they brought in a new chairman, someone who supported the government.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Jarek’s own brother.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

So as soon as he took over, he started running news and segments that were basically in line with the values of the party, anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-L.G.B.T., anti-press and anti-E.U.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Once the state media were under control, the government went directly after the independent press. And for Gazeta Wyborcza, Jarek’s newspaper, he says this meant that basically all the subscriptions and all the advertising linked to any government-affiliated office or enterprise were cut.

katrin bennhold When was that? When was that? jaroslaw kurski 2016, ‘15, ‘16. It was ‘15. ‘15. December ‘15, January ‘16.

katrin bennhold

Gas stations run by the government were instructed to hide the Gazeta Wyborcza to make it more difficult to find if customers wanted to buy it.

katrin bennhold Can I just ask you in terms of the impact, the financial impact, can you quantify that? Can you sort of give an idea of, I don’t know — you lost — in one day, you lost, I don’t know, half of your subscriptions, or, like, a third, or 10 percent, or whatever it was? jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

He said he doesn’t know exact numbers, but he said it was huge. The government is using its power to try to strangle the newspaper.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And then they’re starting to sue journalists.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

It starts suing the paper. It starts suing individual journalists. Jarek tells us that there have been at least 30 cases against the paper. And that means that journalists are operating in this environment of intimidation on a daily basis.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

So at some point, the newspaper starts referring to itself as the opposition.

katrin bennhold So we’re back to a historical moment. jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH] katrin bennhold Yeah.

katrin bennhold

The opposition to the government, just like they were the opposition to Communism 30 years ago. That’s not usually the role for a free and independent newspaper in a democracy.

jaroslaw kurski [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

The paper would say they have no choice in this moment but to fight back, and that they’ll drop opposition from their name as soon as Law and Justice is out of power. But I’m struck that, just by calling itself the opposition, they are actually contributing to this divide in Poland.

[music]

katrin bennhold

And that’s basically where things stand today. The divisions in Poland run really, really deep.

jaroslaw kurski Me and my brother, we served as example of this cleavage, this split. katrin bennhold We were hoping to interview your brother, but he hasn’t really responded. jaroslaw kurski I — it’s obvious for me. He — he refused to have the interview with any international broad newspaper and media. katrin bennhold He was a supporter — jaroslaw kurski Yeah. katrin bennhold — of Solidarity then. When did it turn? When did he turn? jaroslaw kurski Do you have a night?

katrin bennhold

I mean, this story of Jarek and his brother, it’s kind of an incredible story. They don’t talk to each other. They haven’t talked in years. Jarek can barely talk about his brother. It makes him too upset. And it seems crazy, right? This one brother running a liberal newspaper, and this other brother running the state-controlled broadcaster. But it’s not an uncommon story in Poland. These divisions run right across families. They run through friendships. And people literally stop talking for life.

[music]

katrin bennhold

Jarek thinks this is all incredibly dangerous, because he thinks that the kind of propaganda that is coming out of the state-controlled broadcasters is fueling hatred.

jaroslaw kurski The atmosphere, atmosphere was created. And if you are the responsible to this propaganda, you have to take to the consideration the possible consequences.

katrin bennhold

And Jarek tells us about something that happened in his hometown of Gdansk earlier this year, something that he said could be seen as a kind of direct consequence of all this hatred.

jaroslaw kurski It was the product of the propaganda.

katrin bennhold

And so we went to Gdansk to hear that story. We’ll be right back.

[church bells ringing]

katrin bennhold

So we get to Gdansk, and we head over to this Catholic church at the center of town —

katrin bennhold Is this church —

katrin bennhold

— to meet Magdalena Adamowicz.

katrin bennhold — do you — do you come to this church for Mass? magdalena adamowicz Yes, yes, this is the basilica. This is the biggest church in the world built by bricks. katrin bennhold Right. magdalena adamowicz Or out of bricks. And here my husband is buried. So this is the story. ^[CHOIR SINGING]^ katrin bennhold Hi, we’re here. We’re just outside. We’re parking outside, O.K.? Outside the gate.

katrin bennhold

So she invites us to her apartment and shows us into the living room, where we sit down with some tea and some cookies.

magdalena adamowicz I will serve a little one. We call them magdalene, magdalenes.

katrin bennhold

And she starts telling us about her late husband, Pawel Adamowicz, who was mayor of Gdansk for 20 years.

magdalena adamowicz My husband was before conservative person. katrin bennhold He was considered to be a conservative? magdalena adamowicz Yeah, he was like conservative person.

katrin bennhold

He stood as a conservative, and he represented conservative values to the point of banning gay pride in Gdansk in the early years. But he was someone, she said, who always challenged his own views, and he was happy to listen to other people’s opinions.

magdalena adamowicz He observed the people. He observed not only the infrastructure, but what the people are doing, how they interact, what is the culture, and what is the tradition —

katrin bennhold

So she said, for example, he would speak to people in Gdansk and scribble down notes whenever somebody said something that surprised him or challenged him.

magdalena adamowicz He always have some small papers in his pocket here, and always put some notes —

katrin bennhold

And then he would come home at night and would take all these little scraps of paper out of his pockets. And he would review them with a glass of wine and just make sure that he remembered what people had told him.

magdalena adamowicz Then after years, he changed.

katrin bennhold

And it took him some years, but when the nationalist government came into power in 2015 and started coming down hard on the L.G.B.T. community, he shifted on that issue.

magdalena adamowicz He said no, we cannot allow to treat these people as a sick people, because they were considered by our government as sick, as a people who are a danger because of diseases, and so on.

katrin bennhold

And in 2017, he not only allowed gay pride, but he marched.

katrin bennhold And when he took part in this L.G.B.T. parade, gay pride, was there a backlash? magdalena adamowicz Yes, there was — there was some hate on him. For example, national TV. Indeed, over 100 programs showing my husband as a thief, as a liar.

katrin bennhold

He became a target on state television. But even as his views shifted, Pawel was still reelected. And in 2018, he began his sixth term as mayor of Gdansk.

magdalena adamowicz So I — I went to California at the end of November.

katrin bennhold

Around this time, Magdalena was in California with their two daughters, and Pawel joined them for a family vacation.

magdalena adamowicz And that has never, ever happened before that we were all together so long without his job, without any, let’s say, friends and duties. So it was a very special time for us, you know?

katrin bennhold

After a couple of weeks, Pawel had to head back home because he had business to attend to as mayor. And Magdalena stayed behind with their daughters. And then he called her early in the morning soon after he got back.

magdalena adamowicz He had some nightmares.

katrin bennhold

And he said he’d had nightmares that night, and he couldn’t really sleep, and he didn’t know, maybe it was the jet lag.

magdalena adamowicz And I said to him — he told me goodbye.

katrin bennhold

It was a short conversation, and they say goodbye. And then Magdalena goes to church later in the day and takes her daughters. She turns off her phone during the service. And when she comes back out —

magdalena adamowicz I turn it on, and I saw my niece was calling three times.

katrin bennhold

She realizes she has a ton of missed calls. So she calls her niece back. And her niece tells her that her husband has been stabbed.

magdalena adamowicz I thought it’s not true. And I was starting to call all his deputy mayors, you know, one and the other one. And nobody answer, nobody answer. I said, O.K., this is winter. He has a thick jacket, and probably he’s only a little wounded, and nothing happened.

katrin bennhold

It is winter. He would have worn a thick winter jacket. He’s probably in a very good hospital. It’s probably all going to be fine. But then more calls start coming in, and she’s beginning to realize that this actually happened, that her husband was stabbed. In Gdansk, on stage, he was stabbed in the heart.

magdalena adamowicz I really didn’t know what to do. I called my agent to find tickets.

katrin bennhold

Eventually she finds an indirect flight via London, gets on it.

magdalena adamowicz So all the way, you know, we were like praying that he would be alive.

katrin bennhold

And then she lands in Gdansk. She’s picked up at the airport, and she’s told that her husband is already dead. So she goes to the hospital and she sits with his body.

magdalena adamowicz So I have to unzip him, and — and I was talking to him, telling him goodbye, touching him, kissing him. [CRYING] clare toeniskoetter What did you tell him? magdalena adamowicz Why — why he — why he left us? Why he left us? That we need him.

[music]

katrin bennhold

The man who stabbed Pawel Adamowicz was a mentally unstable individual. He’d been in an institution. But in that institution, he’d been exposed to a lot of state television. And this is one thing that leads Magdalena to think pretty much immediately that her husband was killed by an atmosphere of hate. She blames the media. She blames what she called institutionalized hate speech on the public broadcaster.

magdalena adamowicz I think it is polarization. Without that, I believe my husband would still be alive. katrin bennhold Polarization killed him. magdalena adamowicz Yes. And I thought, I have to do something. His death can not be waste, you know?

katrin bennhold

She decides to run for office. She decides to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

katrin bennhold What is it that you — if you get elected, what is it that you want to change? magdalena adamowicz So what I’m afraid, it’s that nationalists and people who are really against the European Union and would like to blow up the European Union from inside, it can happen everywhere, you know?

katrin bennhold

She told us of her grandmother and her great-grandmother, who had both survived Auschwitz.

magdalena adamowicz If you divide people, if you differ the people between them, if you think that someone is better than the other, you know, then you can have the same story as it was before, you know?

katrin bennhold

We’ll be right back. So we say goodbye to Magdalena. And we reached out to the Law and Justice party to basically find someone to ask this question to: Is this government and the state-controlled media, are they creating an atmosphere so full of hatred and so full of division that it may have inspired the murder of Magdalena’s husband?

katrin bennhold Danuta? danuta bialooka-kostenecka Yes. Hello, hello. Nice to meet you. Hello, hi.

katrin bennhold

And we meet Danuta, Danuta Bialooka-Kostenecka, a local official from the Law and Justice party.

translator I prefer to speak through the interpreter.

katrin bennhold

We meet her at our hotel in Gdansk. She’s very conservatively dressed, elegant, and she has this kind of nervous laugh.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka Interpreter. [LAUGHING]

katrin bennhold

And I asked Danuta —

katrin bennhold Do you think that your party’s discourse contributes to an environment in which societies become very polarized, and a deranged individual might have the idea to stab a mayor on stage? danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Now, it was interesting, because Danuta did not dispute that there was a lot of division in Poland.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

She did not dispute even that the state-controlled media was blatantly biased in favor of the government. But she rejected the idea that the murderer had in any way been inspired by that atmosphere.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

She claimed that this had simply been the act of a mentally unstable individual and that the division in society, which she also considered a problem, was the fault of all sides involved.

katrin bennhold And the Law and Justice party is changing Poland. What does the party stand for? danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

And she basically said —

translator We are Polish, and we want to stay Polish.

katrin bennhold

We want Poland to stay Polish.

katrin bennhold What does that mean? danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH] translator It’s a different question. It’s more of a philosophical question. I think there are certain things that all Polish people have in common, and that’s language, culture, tradition and history.

katrin bennhold

And religion, I asked her? And she said yes, religion too. Christianity.

katrin bennhold Can you be gay and atheist and Polish? danuta bialooka-kostenecka Of course you can. [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

She said her party doesn’t tolerate discrimination. But what she said she didn’t like and what her party didn’t want is what she called —

danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Active promotion of those values.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka [SPEAKING POLISH]

katrin bennhold

Is that what the mayor in Gdansk was doing by marching with gay pride? Is it what allowing an openly gay person to teach in a school would be doing? Is it what letting someone be openly gay on the street would be doing? What does that phrase really mean: active promotion?

[music]

katrin bennhold Thank you, I think I’m done now.

katrin bennhold

So I thank her. We wrap up the interview, but she looks pretty exasperated.

katrin bennhold So now we just take a photo. danuta bialooka-kostenecka It was very exhausting. Exhausting. katrin bennhold Oh, it is. I’m sorry. But it’s so interesting. Thank you. It’s really interesting, you know? I mean, we need to understand everybody better. Would you mind — danuta bialooka-kostenecka I — I — I’m not quite happy because I have a feeling that you don’t understand our point of view. katrin bennhold Well, maybe we need to meet again. danuta bialooka-kostenecka Yeah, maybe. katrin bennhold And talk some more. clare toeniskoetter What do you think we don’t understand? danuta bialooka-kostenecka I think you still are thinking that our democracy is threat, and we are fighting for democracy, and — katrin bennhold I don’t think that Poland is this — do you think Hungary is a democracy? Do you think —

katrin bennhold

I ask her if she thinks Hungary is a democracy. Hungary has had a nationalist government for even longer than Poland, and there the free press is pretty much entirely gone. And the country actually calls itself an illiberal democracy, a democracy that is no longer built on liberal values.

katrin bennhold Do you think Hungary is still a democracy? danuta bialooka-kostenecka Yeah, I think so. I think so, yeah. And do you think Germany? katrin bennhold Is a democracy? I do. I think so. Do you think Germany is a democracy? danuta bialooka-kostenecka I think it is, but I can see some threat for democracy in Germany.

katrin bennhold

And I’m beginning to realize she wants to take the liberalism out of democracy. She thinks liberal democracy ultimately limits freedom. She says having a system which guarantees freedom for the individual, that’s just fine. But it’s when that system is imposing specific behaviors on people that it’s not right anymore. She says democracy should give people what they want, and that that’s what Poland is doing. Her party was elected by a majority. And it’s keeping its promises to that majority, whereas a liberal democracy has these freedoms that aren’t negotiable. It imposes minority rights on the majority. So we have this sort of moment at the end of this interview, where these two opposing visions of democracy suddenly clash and just kind of sit side by side. And honestly, I think this is the closest we’ve come to understanding what the battle for Europe’s future is over. It’s not about democracy versus something else. It’s about these two opposing views of democracy. We’ve been coming at this like there’s no such thing as democracy without liberalism. And she’s saying, you’ve got it exactly wrong. Liberalism is actually undemocratic. It only allows for one perspective. And in Poland, she’s saying, the majority of voters, not only do they not share that perspective, they voted against it. That’s democracy.

danuta bialooka-kostenecka You know, I don’t know the German society — I have been to Germany a long time ago, but —

katrin bennhold

Germany, she says, not so much. And that’s where we’re going next, back to Germany, to find out about the results in these E.U. elections, to see how Europe is starting to answer this democracy question.

katrin bennhold Thank you. danuta bialooka-kostenecka Thank you. [interposing voices]

katrin bennhold

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. See you tomorrow in Germany.

[music]