Slawomir Cenckiewicz quotes

We know the secret police's methods, and the way the archive and registry were run - that's how we know. We've also found evidence from the Bolek file cited in other files.
-- Slawomir Cenckiewicz

#Running #Police #Secret

We're historians and above all want to write about what was. Our book doesn't deal with legacies. It also wasn't our goal to destroy a legend. We consider Walesa to be a national symbol. He led Solidarity and remains an icon. But he also worked with the secret police under the name Bolek. The truth isn't always simply black and white.
-- Slawomir Cenckiewicz

#Book #Writing #Black And White

Walesa was a national hero, a true icon. The vast majority of Poles didn't believe a word the authorities said. They took everything the official media said about Walesa to be a manipulation by the Communist authorities.
-- Slawomir Cenckiewicz

#Believe #Hero #Media

By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.

Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.

Louis de Bernires is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh. . .he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste.

I've had my run in with trouble. Fortunately, you know, one slap on the hand is usually the last time for me... I learned my lesson.

Citizens who take it upon themselves to do unusual actions which attract the attention of the police should be careful to bring these actions into one of the recognized categories of crimes and offences, for it is intolerable that the police should be put to the pains of inventing reasons for finding them undesirable.

We need a strong police force - the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Chechnya. We have to get rid of the traitors who have managed to penetrate into the law-enforcement department.

I got nothing against the honest cop on the beat. You just have them transferred someplace where they can't do you any harm. But don't ever talk to me about the honor of police captains or judges. If they couldn't be bought they wouldn't have the job.

There is an unbroken line of police violence in the United States that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the development of the Ku Klux Klan. There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.

There has to be irony, both in design and in the objects. I see around me a professional disease of taking everything too seriously. One of my secrets is to joke all the time

I would like to mention that I have flown the 262 first in May ‘43. At this time, the aircraft was completely secret. I first knew of the existence of this aircraft only early in ‘42 - even in my position. This aircraft didn’t have any priority in design or production.