Powers of attorney and proxies granted to Zbigniew Gryszkiewicz. Information on the NSZZ “Solidarność” Medicines and Medical Equipment Bank

Powers of attorney and proxies granted to Zbigniew Gryszkiewicz. Information on the NSZZ “Solidarność” Medicines and Medical Equipment Bank, fond 25/1

In the Historical Archives of the National Commission of the Solidarity Trade Union you can find documentation of various citizens’ committees which were organized and functioned within the Union structures. One of them was the General Committee of the NSZZ “Solidarność” Medicines and Medical Equipment Bank. This organization imported and distributed medicines and medical equipment from abroad. Its founder was a lawyer, Zbigniew Gryszkiewicz.

The scans below contain e.g. a power of attorney authorising officials of the Solidarity Trade Union Health Service to represent the Union and to take all steps which were necessary to organize the Polonia Medicines Bank Fund called “The Rescue.” There are also proxies allowing Zbigniew Gryszkiewicz to carry on negotiations, to make preliminary decisions regarding financial foundations of the Fund, and to cooperate with Polish émigré organizations and Poles living abroad.

Among valuable documents in this collection there is a letter written by Wojciech Kuźmierkiewicz, office manager and member of the General Committee of the NSZZ “Solidarność” Medicines and Medical Equipment Bank, in which he informs about the Bank’s principles of operation and asks for distributing this information among Enterprise Committees of the Gdansk Region of the Solidarity Trade Union. Also presented below is the information on the “The Rescue” Polonia Medicines Bank Fund explaining procedures to obtain medicines. Another interesting document is a list of gifts donated to the Solidarity Trade Union with information on location, dates and number of received packages or boxes.

It is worth mentioning that the materials we present here come from only one archival unit in the collection of the General Committee of the NSZZ “Solidarność” Medicines and Medical Equipment Bank. Other units contain e.g. agreement between the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Solidarity Trade Union regarding collaboration with the Medicines Bank, and information on cooperation between the Deborah Heart and Lung Center (near Philadelphia) with the Post-Graduate Medical Education Center and the Cardiology Institute in Warsaw regarding free of payment surgeries of cardiac defects for Polish children. There is also correspondence with Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain and Italy. You may review the complete list of units of this collection in „Szukaj w Archiwach”.