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   P I G U L K I  an occasional electronic collection of news
                  analysis, press reviews, and humor from/about
                  Poland and the Polish community abroad
 ____________________________________________________________________

    May 15 1995             ISSN 1060-9288          Number 19
 ____________________________________________________________________

In this issue:

  Editorial
     LODZ SPRING ................................. Dave Phillips

  Polish Affairs
     THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT .................. Marek Cypryk
     IN THE WORLD OF INTENSIFIED SCHIZOPHRENIA ... Jan Krzysztof Bielecki
                                                   interviewed by
                                                   Teresa Toranska
     VE DAY, 50 YEARS LATER ...................... Radek Sikorski

  Networks
     POLAND: OPEN TO THE WORLD OR THE WORLD'S BACKYARD?
                                 - an appeal to Poland's legislature
     POLISH NETWORKING ISSUES 1995 ............... Jack Tuszynski
     POLAND-ELECTRONIC CONTACTS................... Rafal Maszkowski /
                                                   Marek Zielinski
  Po Prostu
     LEAVING THE BARBED WIRE BEHIND .............. Dave Phillips

  Letters to the Editors
     INTERNET FOR HIGH SCHOOLS (IdS) ............. Jacek Gajewski

  The back page
     TRAVELOG: The Sabbath on Bald Mountain (1/3)  Jurek Klimkowski

  Notes on Contributors
  About PIGULKI

========================================================================
Editorial

                         LODZ SPRING


Early this February (1995), a small flower bud poked its head up through
the chilly soil of late winter in Poland.  PDi, Limited (Public Internet
Access) began its operation on a pair of Pentium machines running Linux,
offering shell and PPP accounts to the people of Lodz.

Unlike Warsaw, which is served by the internet service of emigre
businessman turned quack politico Tyminski, there is no "X" factor here.
The principals are a mix of people from Lodz - some of whom stayed in
Lodz during the 80s, some of whom left and who were active from abroad
in bringing the Net to Poland in the wake of the Round Table - and other
Poles contacted during the days of the EARN/Poland Link Coordinating
Committee. Solidarnosc supporters and net activist-scientists, a good
combination to provide Lodz with a gateway to the new world of
information in an information-intensive global economy.

Contrary to the "Warsaw in the Polish desert" centralizing tendencies in
telecom which are a legacy both of old agrarian Poland and of communist
Poland, PDi represents a private initiative for regional economic
development.  In addition to offering students, professionals, and other
citizens of Lodz affordable net connectivity, PDi's Centre of Europe
Showcase (worldwide web server) offers Lodz a chance to position itself
in cyberspace as a place to invest, to create jobs, and for tourists to
visit. It also allows Lodz firms a chance to make new business contacts,
and to acquaint themselves with trends in the West, new tech, opinions,
market trends, especially as more and more cutting-edge trade journals
and presses are making their first forays onto the web.  With luck PDi
may not only help improve access to information, but help stimulate new
uses for this information, especially business-to-business.

Provided, of course, that the bureaucrats in Warsaw, surveying their
"provinces," are not allowed to meddle in the building of new
information infrastructures in Poland.  We want a thousand flowers to
bloom in Poland, not just ragweed.   A concerned Polonia can help make
sure that late frosts don't stunt Poland's growth.

For the editors,
Dave Phillips

========================================================================
Polish Affairs                                           By Marek Cypryk

                       THE FALL OF THE GOVERNMENT

Another Polish government has fallen. Here is a short summary of its
achievements and failures.

The main scope of evaluation is the economy (Table 1). Gross National
Product (GNP) increased by 5% and was 4% larger than in 1990.  This
means Poland's  economy is out of the recession which was caused mainly
by structural transformation.  Products Sold increased by 11.9%, of
which the government-owned sector showed a 5.8% increase, and the
private sector a 22.7% increase. The share of the private sector in the
whole economy increased from 35% to 38%.  Exports rose by 17.8%, imports
by 13.7% and the foreign trade deficit was $4.3 billion (4.3E+9) ($4.7
billion in 1993). The budget deficit was 5.9 billion Zloty (*) (2.8%,
the same as in 1993) and was less than the predicted 5%. Productivity
increased by 14%. Inflation was 29.5% according to GUS (Central Office
of Statistics) and 33.2% according to CUP (Central Planning Office).
Unemployment decreased for the first time in 4 years.

      Table 1. Changes in Poland's Economy 1994 v. 1993

     Category                1994           1993
     =====================   =======      =======
     Gross National Product   + 5.0%       +3.8%
     Products Sold            +11.9%       +6.2%
        Private sector:       +22.7%
        Public sector:        + 5.8%
     Private Sector Share
      in overall economy       38%           35%
     Budget Deficit           2.8%          2.8%
     Foreign Trade Deficit  US$4.3bn    US$4.7bn
     Productivity             +14%
     Inflation
        per GUS:              29.5%
        per CUP:              33.2%

The economic indicators are therefore very good. One has to remember,
however, that there is a considerable lag between economic decisions and
their results, and the good state of the economy should be credited to
the governments of Balcerowicz and Osiatynski. One also has to praise,
however, Borowski and Kolodko, finance ministers and architects of the
economic policy in Pawlak's government, for not damaging the results of
their predecessors. It happened only because the election promises of
SLD and PSL (which were entirely unrealistic) were broken.

The most serious criticism of Pawlak's budget is that it increased. As a
result of tax rate increases, the government share in redistribution of
GNP rose, intensifying state interventionism. We have one of the largest
VAT rates (22%). The compulsory Social Security tax rate is about 50% of
the salary. Personal income tax has three brackets: 21%, 33% and 45%,
shown in Table 2. The distribution of income also shown in Table 2
indicates the poverty of our society, and weakness of our middle class.

       Table 2. Personal Income Tax and Income Distribution, Poland

       Income Bracket    % of Poles    Tax Rate   U.S.$ Income Equiv.
       ==============    ==========    ========   ================
       to 12,400 zl/yr       90.5%          21%       to US$ 5,000
       to 24,800 zl/yr        8.0%          33%       to US$10,000
       above 24,800 zl/yr     1.5%          45%    above US$10,000


The results are much less impressive in the area of restructuring, a
necessary element of the transformation of the political system from
Communism to a free market.

* Privatization has almost stopped, mainly by the hands of PSL

* Reprivatization, the necessary ordering of ownership, did not
  move forward.

* The reform of local self-government (communes, districts,
  voivodships) slowed to a halt, as did the reform of the structure
  of the government (mainly due to Minister Strak of PSL).

* Social Security reform has not even begun, which threatens a future
  budget breakdown.

* The conflict around the Foreign Affairs Ministry and Minister
  Olechowski demonstrated an unclear and conflicting understanding of
  the Polish raison d'etat.

As far as the last topic is concerned, it is suggested that the
governing coalition is interested in concessions towards Russia, in
return for growth in trade. It is said that PSL is especially interested
in such a turn, hoping for an increase of the agricultural exports to
Russia. The stance of SLD is also ambivalent, which can be seen in
presenting Longin Pastusiak, former propaganda specialist in PZPR, known
from hostile and full of false texts about NATO, as a candidate for the
Defense Minister.

In recent days, economic indicators have worsened, and one can see a
strong inflation impulse, which has not been explained by the
government.  I personally expect it to be mainly the result of the
faulty agricultural policy forced by PSL.

To summarize, I believe PSL was unmistakably the worse partner in this
coalition. It had no cadres prepared for governing the country, and the
politics of its leaders (Pawlak, Strak, Podkanski and Pek) was ruled
mainly by the narrowly understood interest of the Agrarian party, not
the society as a whole. In short term it was to the advantage of
individual farmers, the electorate of PSL, but in the long run it
deepens the backwardness of the farming districts.

It may appear paradoxical that the agrarian party of individual farmers
would be for strong state interventionism, and against privatization and
decentralization. It turns out that entrepreneurs can be against free
market and competition (**). It results from overcrowding of the
countryside, excessive fragmentation of the farm properties and low
productivity, and also from innate conservatism of farmers. Economic
freedom is a deadly threat for them. They naturally choose the
protectionist poverty, at the expense of the consumers working in other
sectors of the economy.

The conflict between the two essentially socialdemocratic parties, SLD
and PSL, can therefore be seen as a reflection of the conflict of
interests between the city dwellers and farmers. And here, into this
more and more frustrating relationship enters the President, with his
typical lack of deference.

Walesa threatened (without basis in law) to dissolve parliament and
achieved his goal to the point that the internal conflicts of the
coalition, hidden until now, became public. Pawlak resigned, and the
formation of the new government was conferred on the house Speaker
Oleksy (SLD). Oleksy is not well liked by the president nor by PSL,
which might want to have its revenge for the fall of their party boss.
Thence Oleksy's problems in completing the cabinet. Eventually, the new
government was sworn in. Oleksy is known as middle ground politician,
reasonable and willing to compromise. The composition of his cabinet is
a result of a compromise as well. It is not a Dream Team, but he managed
to get rid of the worst ministers of Pawlak's cabinet: Strak, Podkanski
and Smietanka (all from PSL). Already on the first day in office Oleksy
nominated the chief of police, a decision Pawlak could not make in 8
months. Oleksy will have to show considerable skill in steering a middle
course between Scylla (Walesa) and Charybda (Pawlak). I would not be
surprised if the life of his government was short.

An alternative for Oleksy's cabinet, at least in theory, was a proposal
presented by Unia Wolnosci to form a non-partisan government. The
proposal was not realistic, though, with the intensity of ambitions and
touchiness of the politicians. The so called "right," enslaved by its
slogans of decommunization, cannot agree to cooperate with post-
communist parties. The ruling coalition cannot accept such a cabinet
either, since it would mean admitting to incompetence and defeat in
spite having a majority in the parliament. The liberals do not accept
the economic policy promoted by PSL, SLD and the better part of the
"right", which in essence also preaches socialdemocratic ideas. And X
will not talk to Y, since they quarreled once and will not agree to sit
in the same cabinet.

More and more often one can hear talk of advance parliamentary
elections. In connection with coming presidential elections we can
expect a lot of commotion, but not much good for the country.

After five years of reconstruction we achieved as much, that the
majority of the society is against economic reforms, fearing worsening
of their situation (farmers, workers in big state enterprises), and is
also not too enthusiastic about democracy, seeing inefficiency,
incompetence and the pursuit of private interests by politicians. If
there is a minimal acceptance of the reforms, it is only in the sense of
the necessary evil. Enthusiasm and optimism have evaporated completely.


Marek Cypryk                              Translated by Marek Zielinski

--------------------
(*) 1 Zloty = 10,000 Old Zl; 1$ = 2.4 Zl
(**) Or, perhaps, not so paradoxical - in the US even the big farming
companies are for state interventionism, since they are its biggest
beneficiaries.


========================================================================
Polish Affairs                                           Teresa Toranska


              IN THE WORLD OF INTENSIFIED SCHIZOPHRENIA

Excerpts from an interview with Jan Krzysztof Bielecki

Teresa Toranska authored the bestseller "ONI" (THEY), a series of
interviews with the most prominent Polish leaders of the Communist era.
Her new book is titled "MY" (WE). She had numerous conversations with
the architects of the present system: Balcerowicz, Bielecki, Kaczynski,
Kulerski, Merkel, Rulewski, Szczepaniak.  Reprinted with permission
below is a portion of her interview with Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, who
served as Poland's Prime Minister during 1991.


Bielecki: The funniest scene? Kohl and me. He's a big guy, isn't he?
          130 kg.  And me - half his height and weight. He is so earnest
          and I... (laugh). We are marching in front of the guard of
          honor.

Toranska: And what did you tell him?

Bielecki: "Aren't we marching?" in German. He looked at me in
          astonishment and I'm not sure whether he understood the
          comicality of this scene.
****************************************************

T: You told me during our first conversation that you never wished to be
   a politician. That "I don't want to but I have to" although it's
   somebody else's saying.

B: I said I am a man who found himself in politics out of a sense of
   responsibility since the situation was such that it indeed seemed
   that I had to, it seemed to me I had to. And now I don't have to. Now
   (laugh) I can spend some time in London.

T: As an economist?

B: I can be what I like.

T: Don't you regret? Since you grew a lot during that incomplete year of
   being the prime minister.

B: Is it a question?

T: A statement.

B: Since it is an interesting thread for me.

T: You know?

B: Janusz Lewandowski has already told me, so I'm not very surprised.
   Janusz is my friend. I have known him for twenty years and over those
   entire twenty years Janusz has regarded me with boundless irony.

T: He's one month older, isn't he?

B: He's one month younger and studied one year lower. But Janusz had
   come to Gdansk University as a top of his class from Lublin, later he
   became one of the most prominent students, during studies he greatly
   developed himself and when we were meeting as university Assistants
   at physical training for scientific workers, Assistant Lewandowski
   looked at Assistant Bielecki, mildly speaking, mockingly. When I
   stopped being prime minister he announced to me that I jumped over
   myself ten times which, on the one hand, confirms your thesis but on
   the other is a bad testimony for Poland. Since it means that Poland
   is a country with no competition. Since learning should take place at
   school.

T: And you, what were you like then?

B: Do you want serious or funny?

T: First funny.

B: So from the army. During Military Training I became famous for the
   greatest absurdities. When I found that the army was a totally
   nonsensical but unavoidable episode in life, I decided that it should
   be treated as amusement. Cleaning lavatories was regarded as the
   highest punishment by my dear officers, so I volunteered for it
   during each camp. Another punishment, applied when they wanted to
   torment or tease some student, was crawling in full kit that is
   chemical coat and a gas mask making breathing difficult. So I
   reported to my favorite major asking if I could practice the problem:
   an individual soldier attacking, during the break. He agreed, so I
   put on all that stuff and the whole 20 minutes of the breakfast break
   I was jumping, running, falling.  But after the fourth year of
   studies I was promoted platoon commander, to some extent following
   the principle that when the most insubordinate soldier becomes a
   leader he will maintain discipline. Then I implemented my own
   military orders. For instance: one, two, three, four, a record! And
   the platoon, singing "sparrows have been chirping since the early
   morning, chirrup! where are you going, Mary darling" marched into the
   canteen. The officer of the day jumped out and ordered us to drill
   instead of eating dinner.

T: What's your military rank?

B: I'm a reserve Second Lieutenant.

T: Walesa is only a corporal.

B: I've always maintained that not only is talent of importance in
   Poland, as the President holds, but also qualifications. Therefore
   when during the officer's examination I was ordered: Show us, Cadet,
   the longest river in Poland, I pointed out to some river with great
   hesitation, and when they told me: and now, Cadet, point out Kwidzyn
   on the map,  and we were in Kwidzyn at the moment and I couldn't find
   it for a long time and my officers liked it very much.

T: Because they knew?

B: Just so. They knew and were better than I, almost M.A. in economy,
   so they felt successful.

T: And now seriously, what are you like?

B: Seriously, the problem in my case is quite simple. There are people
   who, when in difficult situation in life, and this situation concerns
   different forms of life, i.e. sport, professional work, politics -
   start to complain about their fate. And there are people who reach
   their summit, I'll say proudly. I, God forbid, don't think too much
   of myself, but whatever I do in my life, I try to do my best and to
   learn with maximum speed. Once, in 1987, I was fascinated by the
   Pope's pronouncement on Westerplatte, which corresponded exactly with
   my ideology for my own use. The Pope said, addressing the youth and
   trying to restore their moral sanity, something like that everybody
   has his or her Westerplatte in life, a battle one must take up,
   doings one cannot withdraw from, when regardless of the consequences
   one must be simply... good, let's say.

T: As a prime minister you... were?

B: You see, now, in retrospect, I think that I wasn't so bad, anyway.

T: So who was the worst?

B: The one who did nothing, that is, Pawlak in his 33 days. And do you
   know what I'm most pleased at? That I deprived all our subsequent ex-
   prime ministers of insignia of power. I deprived them of their
   lifelong right to a guarding officer, a driver, official car, salary,
   flat they had...

T: and yourself as well

B: and that's O.K. Although I realize that on the whole as a prime
   minister I turned out to be the next example of being moderately
   efficient in home affairs and extremely efficient outside. That is,
   foreign affairs were managed in quite a short time while the home
   ones - not.

T: By turns. After Walesa's election for the president first you were to
   be not the Prime Minister, but the minister of industry in the first,
   Olszewski's government, assembled by him in December 1990.

B: There was such a suggestion.

T: And you didn't want to?

B: It didn't seem to be very concrete. However, I had an impression that
   people who were forming that government were a group of persons who
   wanted power very much, but it wasn't quite clear to me - why. After
   a year, when they had it at last it could be clearly seen. They
   lacked a program.

T: And you had it?

B: First: if I consequently strove for gaining power

T: like Olszewski afterwards, didn't he?

B: then, however, - I will take revenge on him, that's it! - I would
   have something to say; second: liberals had had a clear program, we
   were coming with our definition of privatization, knowing it should
   be carried out. In addition, I was coming with understanding of
   problems in microscale, microeconomy, understanding of problems at
   the level of enterprises which, with Balcerowicz who was an expert in
   macro, could result in not the worst combination. And third: don't
   forget that really I became the prime minister by accident.

T: What did your mother say?

B: Mother? Nothing. She was depressed.

T: Why?

B: Because I was taking such a disaster on my head. She was terrified.

T: Didn't she ask you : don't take it?

B: Certainly not!  My family never discussed things with me in this way.
   I made all my life decisions on my own and I never regretted them.
   And my biography has been quite complicated. Studying in Sweden I
   washed windows, a hundred a night and I worked as a waiter's helper;
   I built pipeline in the Soviet Union; in 1983, when I lost work, I
   started to deliver wood. My biography consists of constant wandering,
   either forced by life or resulting from my conscious choice. And the
   situations I was in required taking lots of decisions. I took them
   often against reason,  basing only on my conviction that it was
   necessary. So everybody virtually got used to the fact that any
   family disputes about me would be in vain and the only thing they
   could do was not to disturb me.

T: Why you?

B: Ask the President.

T: So on what conditions?

B: There were no conditions.

T: Oh, no. Firstly: you came with the wave of great promises made by
   Walesa, shall I count?

B: I'll confess to you that assuming this function I didn't think in
   terms of promises but in the context of economic program presented by
   Walesa during his election campaign which I created to some extent.

T: Secondly: you were to be a buffer.

B: (Smile) Walesa had sort of this conception then, indeed. Afterwards,
   after having appointed Olszewski's government, he recalled it again,
   saying that "I will change governments like buffers", so Olszewski's
   government was to be the next "buffer" case.

T: What was the point? In Polish, please.

B: Walesa imagined that he would appoint a government to be controlled
   manually, with leaders coming and going, and Walesa would change them
   freely. However, it wasn't the case with me.

T: You weren't the first one?

B: As you know, one shouldn't regard Walesa's words emotionally.  One
   should establish in what his conception lies really, who has what
   sovereignty in the process of decision taking. I myself deeply
   believe, anyway, that he acts calmly and is a man who very often is
   able to take not only good decisions but also to see the development
   of a situation properly. I can say that I had been given great
   freedom since the very beginning and there were virtually no attempts
   of intervention on his side into the matters of importance for me.
   [...]

T: This is what Geremek said about you immediately after you were
   appointed: "Advocates of acceleration had announced a radical airing
   of Warsaw, but it appears that the gust blew through Gdansk."  Of
   course he meant it to be caustic.

B: Listen, when I took over the office of Prime Minister, I had a
   completely different view about interpersonal relations. Before, it's
   true, I had met many people whom I exasperated by my manner - in
   their opinion it was somewhat unserious, who didn't accept my style
   of speech - disjointed sentences, allusions, who were irritated by my
   jokes - they're quite silly sometimes, I'll admit, but I never had
   enemies. I never had any implacable enemies. And all of a sudden it
   turned out that people weren't indifferent to me any more and that
   there are those who, with a vehemence worthy of a better cause, are
   beginning to suspect me, often completely disinterestedly, of the
   worst things - of bad intentions, log-rolling, shady business. You
   know, for me it was an extraordinary discovery. I suddenly saw this
   whole company, I saw how twisted, broken, and full of mutual mistrust
   it really was - a world of heightened schizophrenia, to put it
   bluntly.

T: You didn't see it during nearly two years that you spent earlier as a
   member of parliament ?

B: To tell you the truth, I didn't. I didn't really have the time. I
   commuted from Gdansk to Warsaw, actively participated in the
   proceedings of two parliamentary committees, involved myself very
   deeply in the preparation of the joint venture and radio & television
   acts. I travelled extensively all over the world because all of a
   sudden you were allowed to do so. In addition I directed the Gdansk
   consulting co-operative "Doradca" that I had set up in the mid-
   eighties. And I knew the parliamentary scene from television -Western
   television that is: guys fiercely fight against each other in
   parliament and then go out together, smiling, for dinner. Over there,
   the rhetoric of the parliamentary game doesn't affect one's private
   life. Maybe this is so because in a political world which has been
   ordered since time immemorial every advance upwards - by a
   centimeter, even half a step - is extremely difficult, requires hard
   work, years of soliciting, moving up successive rungs, which -firstly
   -teaches how to govern a state and conduct macro-style politics, and
   such knowledge can be gained only through practice, secondly - limits
   ambitions and a guy who came to parliament yesterday isn't even
   allowed to think that tomorrow he'll be appointed prime minister, and
   - thirdly - teaches the forms of competition, most probably how to be
   ruthless as well, but also hypocrisy, I suspect. Over here, in turn,
   promotion from ordinary parliamentarian to prime minister appears to
   be practically obvious (smile), I think we've already had about four
   repetitions of this during our short history, and over here all this
   happens through wars that aren't local, but total.

T: Because if an electrician became president, everyone can?

B: It was different: this crazy Walesa came to power, such an odd
   historical quirk, nothing more, and he pulled along with him a
   certain number of chance persons, though as we read in Jacek Kuron's
   book, Spoko, it's well known who had rendered the greatest services
   in this country, who fought for our dear Poland for 20 years, and who
   would be able to build it. What is more, I read in this book about,
   for example, activities that I knew very well and institutions in
   which I had worked for tens of hours, but I'm not mentioned, I'm not
   at all present in this book. It isn't therefore just a question of
   Walesa's career, it's a whole row of careers, which - according to
   many - are undeserved. In my opinion, it's a sort of Bielecki complex
   - to put it immodestly - that boils down to two matters. First of
   all: why did Bielecki, and not I, become prime minister; secondly: if
   Bielecki could, so can I. In particular this second complex concerned
   my colleagues who later on compared themselves to me, since, of
   course, they knew me very well and often made ironic comments about
   my abilities. Michnik also once said to me: you know very well that
   this Liberals' Congress of yours doesn't stand a chance in Poland, it
   doesn't count at all that it's humbug.

T: But wasn't it ?

B: It was and it wasn't. It wasn't because the party had it's own
   program, three years of activities, though in fact it did have few
   members.

T: Donald Tusk assured that you'll do fine with two thousand.

B: It was due to this freaked out Gdansk way of looking at reality. Due
   to the conviction that the party's members ought to be united not
   only by political interests, but also by mutual understanding and the
   belief in similar ideals. I don't know what was most important for us
   then: ideals or the conviction that the Congress is a group of very
   different personalities, who keep and respect their individual
   character.

T: And it was ...

B: And it was in the sense that we came from the street, and not from
   any posts in the Civil Service, especially not from the higher
   echelons. We came from Gdansk and for the politicians in Warsaw this
   was tantamount to "province" and, as we all know, the provinces are a
   barren desert. What's more, I received my appointment unexpectedly, I
   didn't think I was all that well prepared for this role - I didn't
   make a secret of this - and during the first period we had to have a
   close look at how the government as such functions. That's why, when
   you ask about Balcerowicz, my answer is - yes, I wanted to work with
   both Leszek Balcerowicz and Krzysztof Skubiszewski. For me,
   Balcerowicz - on the one hand, and Skubiszewski - on the other, they
   were the two experienced pillars that, as I thought, would give the
   image and work tempo to my government. Although, of course, I
   realized that this will be interpreted as a continuation of the
   previous economic policy, and not as a breakthrough, as Walesa had
   announced and what his electorate awaited. This was well received
   abroad, but negatively within the country. [...]

Translated from Polish by Joanna Horowska and Maciej Zakrzewski


========================================================================
Polish Affairs                                         By Radek Sikorski


                       V-E DAY 50 YEARS LATER


[Editors' note: the following article has also appeared in National Review.]

'Peace!!!' a leather-clad youth, his face contorted with anger, screamed
three inches from a policeman's nose. We were a stone's throw away from
the neo-classical Neue Wache, Berlin's equivalent of the tomb of the
unknown soldier. (In fact, we were just outside the stone-throwing
range; In anticipation of a riot, closer access had been forbidden by
Germany's constitutional court the day before.) Official Berlin was
preparing to receive several dozen heads of state to commemorate the end
of the Second World War. The Neue Wache was the site of the alternative
commemoration. The 2000 strong rally gathered the full range of Berlin's
Leftists: from the neatly dressed, goofy Greens, to the riot-prone
'autonomes,' Germany's ultra anarchists. The youth I was observing was
one of the radicals. Suddenly, he raised his fist and punched the
policeman in the face. The policeman punched him back. At this, several
bystanders lunged at the officer yelling slogans against police
violence. For the first time in my life I found myself on the side of a
German in uniform.

Their generally odious appearance apart, the protesters had a point. The
Neue Wache had served the same purpose since the times of the Weimar
republic. Photographs show the fuehrer paying his respects to the German
dead of World War One there. It also used to be attended by the leaders
of the peace-loving regime of the German Democratic Republic. Bronze
plaques appeared on it a couple of years ago stating which dead it is
politically correct to honour there. But the monument is inherently
ambiguous. With the passing away of living memory, it may well come to
be regarded as a tribute to all the dead of the various wars, the
innocent victims and the aggressors alike. At a time when 200
conservative German intellectuals issued a manifesto against forgetting,
by which they meant the forgetting of the suffering of innocent Germans,
it should have been easy for those who remember the distinction to get
onto the moral high ground.

The left managed to spoil it. I talked to a neat young man in a track-
suit, a Cleveland Indians baseball cap and a portrait of Che Guevara on
the back of a ruck-sack. He was holding the banner of the 'Bolshevik
Youth': 'Glory to the Red Army which defeated Nazism under the
leadership of comrade Stalin.'

- Do you think comrade Stalin was a man of peace? I enquired. - He
defeated Hitler, that's what counts. - He also murdered millions of his
own people. - That's what the bourgeois press says, but I don't believe
it. - What if it's true? You would be like those Germans who did not
want to believe in the concentration camps, wouldn't you? - If they were
capitalists and defended the system then perhaps they deserved to be
killed.

If those were the only people who remembered German guilt, one would
have to be worried. Fortunately, confused teenagers are not alone in
keeping alive the memory of the rights and wrongs of the past. Despite
the fears at the time of the German unification, the middle ground of
German politics has held firmly on the side of respect for the truth.
Instances of revisionism are firmly thumped by the establishment: the
dubious manifesto was criticized by newspaper editors, the churches and
most politicians. The orthodoxy - that by being conquered the Germans
were liberated from Nazi tyranny - is firmly upheld. That orthodoxy,
celebrating your country's defeat as the day of liberation, is
inherently ambiguous, but on the whole the Germans have managed to carry
it off.

The one blind spot they seem to have and the one jarring note in the
Berlin commemorations was the absence, noted extensively in the German
media, of the Polish president, Lech Walesa, who publicly demanded an
invitation to Berlin and was turned down by Chancellor Kohl.

Poland, the first country to resist Hitler, made the fourth largest
military contribution to the war effort, spawned no organized
collaboration with the Nazis, had an underground state second to none,
and suffered six million casualties, half of them Jewish. At the end of
the war, it passed under Communist rule from which it did not emerge
until 1989. There was little to celebrate in 1945 and commemorations
were again low-key now.

In Berlin, I watched a lonely Pole standing in front of the Brandenburg
Gate and waving at the official limousines on their way to the
ceremonies with a huge Polish flag stuck on a wind- surfing pole. 'Fifty
years ago, there was a Polish flag on this gate; Our soldiers liberated
Tiergarten and the Polytechnic!' he yelled. 'Now, they've betrayed us
again,' he told me. 'First, they didn't help us when Hitler invaded,
then they sold us to Stalin at Yalta, and now they let the Germans not
invite Walesa,' he argued, his anger directed more at the West for
allowing Germany to get away with it. Most of the people who came up to
him were Germans, he said, all of them with words of support. But the
official insult has awakened the worst Polish fears. Germany's repeated
assurances of a desire for a German-Polish reconciliation on the model
of the one with France, now look threadbare. The victim is having to beg
to be recognized. At some level, we are untermenschen to the Germans
still. It's a bad omen. Before the Nazis vented their fanaticism on the
Jews, Bismarck had practised kulturkampf -cultural genocide - on the
Poles.

So, uncannily, the celebrations of the 50 anniversary of the war's end
have resurrected the feelings at the end of the war itself: ambiguity in
Germany, a sense of betrayal in Poland. Ambivalence also reigns in
Russia. Just as it had done fifty years ago Moscow has appropriated the
glory, downgrading the proportionately larger sacrifices of Ukraine and
Belorus. Just like the victory in the Second World War saved Stalin's
regime from possible internal collapse, so the commemoration of its
anniversary might yet restore a sense of purpose to the Russia of Boris
Yeltsin. And, just as fifty years ago Russians were ambivalent as to
whether to regard Stalin as a bloody tyrant, or their deliverer from
Nazism, so today, they are confused as to their Soviet legacy. Soviet
symbols: the red flag over the Reichstag, the red star on the veterans'
caps, stand for the one thing Russians can feel good about their country
this century. But the latching onto the Soviet legacy of victory carries
long term risks. It may be politically expedient for the embattled
Yeltsin administration to bask in the reflected glory of Marshal Zhukov
- the top Soviet commander in the war - but it will make it all the
harder for the Russians to create a new post-imperial national identity
for themselves. The fate of the statue to Marshal Zhukov makes the point
well. Last year, the plan was to erect the Zhukov statue on the site of
the Lenin mausoleum, which was to be demolished, the corpse sent for
proper burial. But on VE Day Boris Yeltsin unveiled the statue on
another side of the Red Square and he reviewed the veterans' parade from
the top of the mausoleum, just as Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev had
done. The mausoleum is probably here to stay. Thus the monuments to the
two men: the founder of Russia's totalitarianism and her saviour from
another one, will illustrate Russia's inability to come to terms with
its past.

Perhaps more surprisingly, the war's anniversary resurrected the past in
Western capitals as well. Cleverly, the French staged a military parade
without speeches, which not only lessened the tedium but also saved the
poor dears from having to explain how they managed to launder themselves
into one of the victorious allies and gain an occupation zone in Germany
in spite of years of collaboration by Vichy officials such as the young
Francois Mitterand. It was a subterfuge worthy of de Gaulle who, fifty
years ago, managed to persuade American officials to let him into Paris
when the gates were already open, so he could pretend that it was his
forces that liberated it.

The echoes are particularly poignant in Britain. Having lived in Britain
for several years, I hardly saw public expressions of patriotism, except
for the last night of the Promenade concerts, a not entirely serious
occasion. Love of country, the joy in a sense of belonging, pride in
national achievement, was for the little peoples. Flag waving was
something one associated with football hooligans. Suddenly, patriotism
was back in last week. In the week of VE Day, hardly a country pub
remained free of union jacks; Friends who visited tell me that you could
hardly move in Hyde Park for the throng of revellers. For several days,
the air resounded with the tunes of sentimental war-time songs. The
Royal Family, including some of the same members, showed itself to the
jubilant crowds from the same Buckingham Palace balcony as 50 years ago.
At St Paul's cathedral, which miraculously survived the blitz virtually
unscathed, grandees of the Church of England, in their daily routines
busy with such weighty matters as the rights and duties of lesbian
priestesses, managed to strike chords of genuine pathos. The outpouring
of emotions was part nostalgia of the older generation for their youth,
part an attempt to relive the last time Britain played a world
historical role and part a longing for an age of heroism. Unique among
European countries, Britain celebrated the anniversary of VE-Day at
peace with itself, its conscience as clear as it had been when she had
fought the war.

And yet, a sense of foreboding filled the op-ed pages of British
newspapers, just as it had done 50 years before. As the historian
Corelli Barnett put it, Britain could only have won a long war, but it
could only afford a short one. Having mortgaged its national wealth to
win, it then went on a spending spree and replaced the heroic Winston
Churchill with a Labour government which was supposed to distribute the
non-existent fruits of victory. Needless to say, the credit soon ran out
and Britain faced economic collapse and starvation. Soon, the empire
which the war was suppose to preserve, was gone.

And today, just as in 1945, Britain may feel secure about its past, but
it is again worried about its future. Then, it was the sense that the
war was won but the peace was lost and Britain emerged from the war as a
diminished power. Today, the unification of Europe questions the
country's very identity. The monarchy, the constitutional union with
Scotland, the common law, as well as the hard-won achievements of
Thatcherism, are seen to be under threat. 'Did we fight on the beaches
of Normandy only to see India go its own way?' has given way to 'Did we
privatise our pensions, only to join the European single currency so as
to finance other peoples' state pensions from our taxes?' As Norman
Tebbit, a former chairman of the conservative party, put it 'I'll be
wondering if those who died to keep us free, would have given their
lives had they known we would be ruled by the Germans, Italians,
Spaniards, the French and the rest only 50 years on.'

But perhaps of all the celebrations around the world, the most
surprising were the low-key ceremonies in America, the one World War Two
combatant which could truly count itself a victor. America emerged from
it as the leader of the Western world, its economy doubled in size,
accounting for 40 per cent of the world's GDP. A Roman Caesar would be
proud. Yet, Americans remain strangely detached from it, perhaps because
it came so cheap. At 300,000 American casualties amounted to a third of
just one Russian city -Leningrad. That, and the ignorance among people
who should know better about what went on in Europe, also echo the past.
I watched CNN's 30 second history of the Second World War. It was as
good as a 30 seconds history can be, except that it used the current map
of Europe, which must have left observant viewers perplexed as to how
the Wermacht managed to attack Moscow by leaping over Poland and
Belorus. This reminded me of a scene which I recently gleaned from my
uncle's wartime memoirs. A teenager when the war broke out, he was
plucked out of a concentration camp only to be subjected to medical
experiments in a German hospital. When the Americans arrived, he greeted
them in a crowd of slave labourers and camp survivors and was impressed
with their neat uniforms, healthy appearance and smiling faces. But he
also noticed that they seemed not to comprehend what the people whom
they were liberating had gone through. They could hardly be bothered to
acknowledge the cheering. When one of the soldiers threw down a
cigarette butt and one of the wretched survivors picked it up, he had
several camera lenses aimed at him. It was at that moment that my uncle,
a decent, earnest, intelligent man, decided that he had more in common
with the Russians, underdogs like himself. He went back to Poland and
became a Communist. American ignorance can be frightening.

So, do the commemorations prove that peoples learn nothing from their
history? Not quite. Victors don't learn. Americans carry on as if they
can always win effortlessly. The British are still perplexed not to be
top dogs. The French still mourn their long lost glory. Russians treat
Grozny as if it was 1945 Berlin. But the losers do learn. The Germans
learned that they can't take on the world. The Jews learned that they
need their own state. And the Poles now know that the West will always
dump them. The money spent on the anniversary celebrations was well
worth it.

Radek Sikorski

========================================================================
Networks

           POLAND: OPEN TO THE WORLD OR THE WORLD'S BACKYARD?


[An appeal to Polish Legislature, protesting the proposed amendment to
the Communications Bill of Nov 23, 1990, presented in March 1995 with
some 700 signatures - ed.]

Today, sharper than ever since 1989, Polish Internet circles in Poland
and abroad recognize the danger of an attempt to limit the free flow of
information by the Polish Communication Ministry. Inexpensive and
accessible telecommunications is not only an expression of the progress
of a civilized society, it is also a basic tool for achieving such
progress.

In the era of an unbelievable explosion in the means of interpersonal
worldwide communications, and while the European Union specifically
directs the development of telecommunication towards demonopolization
and privatization, Poland's Communication Ministry presents an old-
fashioned draft of "Law to change the Communication Law."  In this draft
there is no place for market solutions, which would insure modern and
inexpensive telephony, TV and computer networks for all Poles. Instead
of a new, better law they propose a lame amendment which confirms both
the monopolistic ownership and the controlling role of the state
administration in telecommunications, and which reinforces the
privileges (almost infinite even now) of the ineffective state monopoly
TP S.A. [Polish Telephony, Ltd.]

The relatively new Communiations Law was popularly criticized for
obsolete solutions, for promoting monopoly, for prolonging the archaic
structure of telecommunications. The result of this law was a sharp
increase in prices of telephone and related services, while in countries
with modern Telecom systems such prices fall.

The proposed "corrections" mean further limits for potential investors,
already tied with red tape of bureaucratic process. Such behavior does
not lead to the informational opening of Poland - on the contrary, it is
an action designed to limit the flow of information and its
civilizational benefits.

We do not understand how it is possible that today, several years after
Poland turned towards towards a market economy, the Communications
Ministry manages to smuggle in an entry on the condition for every
"permit" [for any activity connected with telecommunication]: it cannot
violate the "interest of national economy."  And one will look in vain
for language protecting the rights of citizen, consumer or investor.

Poland has very limited means for modernizing its aging
telecommunication network. Instead of ensuring a climate which would
improve this state of affairs by private investment, there is an attempt
to close the remaining possibilities for investing. In more wealthy
countries, with developed network infrastructure, the state usually does
not designate its "superoperators" to give or rescind permits,
conserving and improving the state of the infrastructure which serves
everybody.

Polish academic and business circles converged in the global Internet
network cannot remain indifferent to what the Communication Ministry
attempts to do with the most sensitive tools of freedom: telephony and
networks. The ministry should follow the rules, not force new ones. The
Communications Law should be designed by the appropriate committee of
the Sejm to protect vital interests of Poles and Poland. In no case
should it be the interests of the state administration. If our country
fails to enact such law, we will lose our eagerly awaited opening to the
World.

-------------------------
Editors' note:

The above appeal, with some 700 signatures, was delivered to the Sejm
and Senate in March 1995.  The amendment was, however, accepted by the
Sejm (247:41). It then moved to the Senate, which attempted to weaken
the monopoly language. The draft is now back in the Sejm. The campaign
for a better communications law continues.

You can retrieve the appeal (in Polish) from:
    http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/misc/protest.html
    http://hebe.umcs.lublin.pl/News/protest.html
    gopher://gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl/11/ustawa
    ftp://ftp.pdi.lodz.pl/pub/info/ustawa/
The proposed amendment is available at:
    http://www.senat.gov.pl/cgi-bin/tr-asc?/posiedze/dr-senat/212.txt
The Congress resolution can be found at:
    http://www.senat.gov.pl/cgi-bin/tr-asc?/posiedze/dr-sejm/rezol.html
The European Union recommendations on "Information Society" are at:
    http://www.ispo.cec.be/g7/keydocs/themepap.html

========================================================================
Networking                                             by Jack Tuszynski


                  POLISH NETWORKING ISSUES 1995

It seems that in 1995, now that high speed satellite and fiber optics
networks connect us to Warsaw and Krakow where we can surf the nets,
there would be no interesting topics left to talk about regarding the
development of the internet in Poland. Quite the opposite is true
however. Several important concerns remain to be addressed. MOS, a
networking-based microcomputer operating system [Note 1], is going to be
the next big killer O.S.  Is Poland's communications infrastructure
ready to adapt to its requirements? We should now start thinking about a
country-wide distributed file system.  Also, a controversy is brewing
regarding whether or not to let the big boys of Western
telecommunications into Poland, and forever be indebted to them for
bringing Poland up to speed.

Bill Gates has a big big problem. DOS is out of date, and MOS, not NT,
is next.  NT is not really needed, because Unix fits the corporate
structure just right. However, a novel application that has recently
exploded on Unix's internet threatens to obsolete Microsoft, the King of
cheap microcomputers. That program is the Mosaic viewer. It is becoming
so that one does not do very much on their computers before they turn to
the essentials, to fire up the Netscape interface, and hit the waves. In
no time at all, the three R's of computing - word processors,
spreadsheets, and databases - are going to be available to customers on
their favorite PC manufacturer's home pages.  PCs will be sold with one-
year free subscriptions to the manufacturer's home pages, which will
include daily backups of ones personal data. PC manufacturers will
become service providers, and the hardware, no doubt, will shrink to a
fraction of its current size and cost. The next generation of PC clients
will consist of a big screen, not like today's 14" SVGA monitors, no
hard disk, 4MB of RAM to serve the video buffer, a low powered
inexpensive CPU, and a very high speed modem.  MOS will boot the
computer, and instantly serve as a Mosaic or Netscape viewer, bypassing
DOS, bypassing Windows, just connecting straight to the internet
provider's home base, and from there, the world.  The telephone
infrastructure in Poland is going to have to adapt to MOS.  Currently,
in California, you pay Pacific Bell approximately $20 per month for a
telephone connection. Calls within about a 10-15 mile range are
absolutely free. One can connect for as long as one wishes. In contrast,
in Poland, in addition to the high up front and monthly fees, local
telephone calls cost about $1 per hour. This telephone rate structure
has got to be redesigned.  The phone companies should raise the cost of
long distance calls, and in turn make the local telephone links free of
charge. MOS and the new telecommunications structure is going to change
the way that Polish Telephone and Telegraph (PTT) is going to do local
business in the near future.

The Open Software Foundation's (OSF's) Distributed Computing Environment
(DCE), which contains the Distributed File System (DFS), is soon going
to be incorporated into all of the major Unix operating systems.
Currently, the multiplatform Andrew File System (AFS) is available as a
commercial product, for approximately $100,000 from IBM's Transarc
Corporation. In a nutshell, the distributed file system is a single
world-wide file system which extends into nations, corporations,
university systems, and enterprises.  Unlike NFS, which burdens the
server with overhead for each client, DFS outsources most of the job of
managing files to its clients. So while NFS cannot handle more than
about 100 clients efficiently, DFS thrives on servicing the needs of a
huge amount of client workstations. Large institutions can purchase
distributed file system software, or wait until all operating systems
start shipping with it.  Some operating systems, like IBM's AIX, already
ship integrated with AFS.  Soon, we are going to have to start thinking
about how to arrange the /dfs/poland/... directory tree, and how to
design its file server structure.  This can be grossly abused if handled
improperly.  There is a server part of the DFS product, and a client
part of the DFS product. If the organization that gets a hold of this
software decides that it is best to locate all home disk space, freeware
programs, and commercial software on centrally controlled file servers,
or to control access to the WWW for the DFS net using only several key
http servers, then a monopoly will ensue.  Those institutes and
companies that do not have access to the servers will not trust and be
envious of those that have it and control it on behalf of the whole
organization. If a distributed net is set up to serve a nation, this can
be an important issue.  It will be very important for the success of the
distributed file system to share server responsibility among the many
disparate computing centers and corporations throughout Poland, and not
to centralize operations in Warsaw.  Every town, city, and university
should maintain its own file server hardware and server software, and
make it available to the entire network.

Recently, the new Katowice WWW site came on-line. One of Maciej Uhlig's
pet projects is a petition to sign up for. It is interesting that there
is only one choice, to vote against the provision. The background on the
petition is that an important new statute went into effect recently
which declared that Poland was not going to let the titans of the West
into several key industries, like petroleum, and telecommunications.
But the big companies have been invited to work in Poland on
automobiles, construction, and shipbuilding. Telecommunications is the
internet. Should companies like ATT, MCI, Bull, etc, be able to compete
with Polish monopolies on their turf? The advantages are a swift and
immediate improvement of telecom infrastructure. This is evidenced by
progress made in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The disadvantages are
that the country gets a short-term gain and makes a long-term loss. Once
the big foreign conglomerates are in, they will completely dominate the
market. Because the price of laying and establishing communications
lines is so high, the expense of entering the market will be enormous,
if not impossible for smaller and weaker Polish companies that will want
to compete with them. The end result will be a tax on everything that
passes across the communications lines paid to the foreign
conglomerates. As a recent article on the topic makes clear, the cost of
investment is so steep, in the hundreds of billions of dollars, the
country is not in a position to provide the services themselves. One has
to wonder however, if the price is so high, what makes the companies so
eager to invest in the land's resources? Can it be the goodness of their
hearts? For the corporations to be so eager to enter the market and
invest billions must mean that there will be a significant payback. The
question for Polish lawmakers is difficult to say the least.

It seems that the internet in Poland has progressed so much from the
days when Donosy was delivered via 1200 baud modem to some MicroVax in
Switzerland, which constituted the network connection of Poland to the
outside world. Today's problems are just as complicated, albeit maybe
not as urgent or emotional. MOS is going require massive alterations to
the local telephone infrastructure. It is important that the country
approach the distributed file system in a democratic way and not stifle
it by trying to overregulate and command its operations and its storage
methods. Also, it remains to be seen if the gamble to attempt to develop
a home grown telecommunications infrastructure will be a better deal for
Poles and whether the country's limited resources will be able to keep
up with the Western giants of industry.

Notes:

[1] MOS is an abstract term used to describe the author's interpretation
of the up-and-coming trend in micro-computer operating system
technology.  MOS is a category of operating systems, like OS2/Warp and
Prodigy for example, which instantly and automatically, upon purchase
and installation, connect a PC to a corporation and bootstrap the
customer to use the internet services of the company that produces it.

Jack Tuszynski


========================================================================
Networks                            Rafal Maszkowski and Marek Zielinski


                   POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS

                    Short version, 15 May 1995

This is a short version of "POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS". It contains
the list of institutions and their organizational subunits, together
with contact persons. The more complete list of electronic contacts in
Poland is available via WWW at http://www.pdi.lodz.pl. It can also be
retrieved as file 'contacts.txt' from the same places that archive
Pigulki (see "About Pigulki").

The list below is designed as an aid in locating E-mail contacts. In
general, the most direct way of finding somebody's E-mail address is to
ask him or her. Telephone and Snail-mail also work wonders. There are
several tools available on the network (notably netfind), which, with
more or less success, attempt to locate the person given name and
approximate location. When all else fails, drop a note to the contact
person listed below. The institutions with network connections are
listed, together with names and addresses of contact persons.

1. Internet Addresses ####################################################

 -------------------------- CITY -----------------------------------------
|INSTITUTION:                                                             |
| Division:          Contact Person <E-mail address>                      |
|_________________________________________________________________________|

--------------------------- BIALYSTOK ---------------------------------------

BIALYSTOK TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY:   Arkadiusz Galicki <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- BYDGOSZCZ ---------------------------------------

ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE
 Inst. of Mathematics and Physics:  Janusz Szykowny <[e-mail]>

MEDICAL ACADEMY:                   Piotr Cysewski <[e-mail]>

PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY:      Slawomir Grondkowski <[e-mail]>

TECHNICAL ELECTRONIC SCHOOL:             Jerzy Pilat <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- GDANSK ------------------------------------------

MEDICAL ACADEMY OF GDANSK
 Computer Center:                                [e-mail]

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Inst. of Hydroengineering:          Jaroslaw Androsiuk <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Fluid-Flow Machinery: Tadeusz Jankowski <[e-mail]>

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK:              Piotr Maj <[e-mail]>
 Computer Center:                                        [e-mail]
 Fac. of Architecture:                       W. Leszkiewicz <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Chemistry:                      Mariusz Krawczyk <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Civil Engineering:             Wladyslaw Grzesiak <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Electrical Engineering:         Krzysztof Snopek <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Electronic Circuits:             [e-mail]
 Fac. of Electronics:                              W.J.Martin <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Hydrotechnics:                      Krzysztof Sass <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Mechanical Engineering:         Lech Skrzynecki <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Oceanology:                         Hanna Czerniak <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Technical Physics and Applied Mathematics:
                            Ryszard Jan Barczynski <[e-mail]>

UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK:              Marek Karkowski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Biology, Geography and Oceanology:
                                       Adam Krezel <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Molecular Biology:     Bogdan Banecki <[e-mail]>
--------------------------- GDYNIA ------------------------------------------

INSTITUTE OF METEOROLOGY AND WATER MANAGEMENT
 Maritime Branch:           Miroslaw Mietus <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- GLIWICE -----------------------------------------

SILESIAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY:               [e-mail]
 Computer Center:                            [e-mail]
 Inst. of Automation, Industrial Control Group:
                              Jurek Moscinski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computer Sci.:  Piotr Sasiedzki <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Electronics:          Witold Baran <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- KATOWICE ----------------------------------------

ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS
 Computing Center:              Aleksander Chrzan <[e-mail]>

SILESIAN UNIVERSITY:             Maciek Uhlig <[e-mail]>
 Computer Center:                Maciek Uhlig <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Chemistry

--------------------------- KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE --------------------------------

INST. OF HEAVY ORGANIC SYNTHESIS "BLACHOWNIA":
                                             [e-mail] [e-mail]

--------------------------- KIELCE ------------------------------------------

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY:               Marek Zwierzyk <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- KRAKOW ------------------------------------------

KRAKOW:                       Jerzy Pawlus <[e-mail]>

ACADEMIC COMPUTER CENTRE "CYFRONET":    Jerzy Pawlus <[e-mail]>

INSTITUTE OF ZOOTECHNICS:                           [e-mail]

JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY:              Roman Markowski <[e-mail]>
 Administration Office:             Mariusz Korzel <[e-mail]>
 Astronomical Observatory:                  Marian Soida <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Chemistry:            Janusz Mrozek <[e-mail]>
 Dep. of Philology:        Lukasz Bienkowski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computer Science:            Adam Kleiner <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Environmental Biology:                     [e-mail]
 Inst. of Geological Sciences:       Janusz Slezak <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics:                                [e-mail]
 Inst. of Molecular Biology:           Jan Ilnicki <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physics:                   Robert Niemiec <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Zoology:                                    [e-mail]
 Jagiellonian Library:                    Ewa Bozejewicz <[e-mail]>

NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND:   Ireneusz Neska <[e-mail]>

NUCLEAR PHYSICS INST.:               Andrzej Sobala <[e-mail]>

PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY:                 Wojciech Folta <[e-mail]>
 Central Library:                    Gabriel Pajdosz <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Astronomy:                 Gabriel Pajdosz <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Computer Science:             Jaroslaw Rafa <[e-mail]>

SOLIDEX LTD.:                 Maciej Kolodziej <[e-mail]>

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CRACOW:    Krzysztof Rozycki <[e-mail]>
 Administration:                                   [e-mail]
 Computer Center:               Krzysztof Rozycki <[e-mail]>
 Dep. of Chemical Engineering:
                            Marek Bobrowski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Civil Engineering:    Bogdan Przebinda <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Electrical Engineering:                 [e-mail]
 Dept. of Environmental Engineering:
                                    Leszek Kaptur <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering:
                                 Slawomir Szlezak <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computational Methods in Civil Engineering:
                                       Grzegorz Mucha <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physics:                     Jerzy Sanetra <[e-mail]>
 Library:                                         [e-mail]

UNIVERSITY OF MINING AND METALLURGY:     Szymon Sokol <[e-mail]>
 Central Library:                        Ewa Lankosz <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Drive Automation:
                           Grzegorz Wrobel <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Geomechanics:                Andrzej Barnat <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Electrical Machines:    Grzegorz Krawczyk <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Electrical Power:          Wojciech Losiowski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Electronics:                   Roman Rumian <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Mechanics and Acoustics:     Jacek Cieslik <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Telecommunication:      Miroslaw Gajda <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of the Theory of Metalurgic Process Engineering:
                                 Marcin Zembura <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Geology, Geophysics and Environment:
                                  Tomasz Ulatowski <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Management:                  Barbara Drejak <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Materials Engineering and Ceramics:
                                Stanislaw Komornicki <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics:
                                  Zbigniew Rudnicki <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Mining:                        Jan Jasiewicz <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Mining Surveying and Environmental Engineering:
                                      Krystian Pyka <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Non-Ferrous Metals:        Mariusz Lesniewski <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Physics and Nuclear Techiques:
                                    Marek Ciechanowski <[e-mail]>
 Financial Dept.:                 Artur Surowka <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Automatics:               Wojciech Chmiel <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computer Science:          Andrzej Krol <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Design and Construction of Mines:                     Jan Jasiewicz
 Inst. of Elektrotechnics:           Maciej Ogorzalek <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics:                   Andrzej Welna <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Metallurgy:                  Krzysztof Wilk <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Underground Mining:                                   Marian Branny
 University Computer Center:             Szymon Sokol <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- LODZ --------------------------------------------

LODZ:                                        Piotr Wilk <[e-mail]>

MAGNUM:                          Piotr Sroczynski <[e-mail]>

MEDICAL ACADEMY:                        Jan Kaminski <[e-mail]>

METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK:                   Piotr Wilk <[e-mail]>

NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND:             [e-mail]

PUBLIC INTERNET ACCESS (PDI) Ltd.          Rafal Maszkowski <[e-mail]>

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF LODZ:                Piotr Wilk <[e-mail]>
 Computer Center:                   Andrzej Bednarek <[e-mail]>
 Laboratory of Computer Networks:            Piotr Wilk <[e-mail]>

UNIVERSITY OF LODZ:                Waldemar Radke <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Crystallography:        Piotr Sobczynski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Solid State Physics:   Marian Bieniecki <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Cosmic Radiation:             Konrad Plich <[e-mail]>

MILITARY ACADEMY OF MEDICINE:
                           Krzysztof Rzepecki <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- LUBLIN ------------------------------------------

LUBLIN:                                       [e-mail]

ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE

CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LUBLIN

LUBLIN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY:                   [e-mail]
 Computer Center:                                  [e-mail]
 Dept. of Civil and Sanitary Engineering:  [e-mail]
 Dept. of Electrical Engineering:           [e-mail]
 Dept. of Management Science:                [e-mail]
 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering:              [e-mail]

MARIA CURIE SKLODOWSKA UNIVERSITY:
                                Piotr Rozmej <[e-mail]>

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Inst. of Agrophysics:                           [e-mail]

--------------------------- OLSZTYN -----------------------------------------

ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE:            Wieslaw Poszewiecki <[e-mail]>

PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY:            Wieslaw Poszewiecki <[e-mail]>

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Inst. of Agrotechny:              Wieslaw Poszewiecki <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- OPOLE -------------------------------------------

PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY:           Andrzej Czainski <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- OTWOCK - SWIERK ---------------------------------

INST. OF ATOMIC ENERGY, COMPUTER CENTRE CYFRONET:           [e-mail]

--------------------------- POZNAN ------------------------------------------

ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY
 Computer Center:                    Dorota Nicewicz <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Theoretical Chemistry:   Adam Gnabasik <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Mathematics and Informatics:
                                 Roman Bednarek <[e-mail]>

AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY:                Tomasz Niewiedzial <[e-mail]>

FRANCO-POLISH SCHOOL OF NEW INFORMATION AND COMM. TECHNOLOGIES:
                                             [e-mail]

INST. OF NATURAL FIBRES:         Dobroslawa Gucia <[e-mail]>

MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY
 Inst. of Heavy Organic Synthesis

NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND:           [e-mail]

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Inst. of Molecular Physics:
                  Wojciech L. Malinowski <[e-mail]>

POZNAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY:    Mikolaj Lubiatowski <[e-mail]>
 Computer Network:                  Bartlomiej Woyke <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Electrical Eng., Dept. of Control, Robotics and Comp. Sci.:
                              Krzysztof Kosarzycki <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Electrical Eng., Inst. of Electronics & Communications:
                                Rafal Krenz <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Electrical Eng., Inst. of Informatics:
                                           Ryszard Jezierski <chief@plpotu51>
 Inst. of Applied Mechanics:             Jerzy Lewinski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Chemistry and Technical Electrochemistry:
                                    Andrzej Suszka <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computing Science:                [e-mail]
 Inst. of Computing Science (Science Center):
                                            [e-mail]
 Inst. of Electrical Power Engineering:
                                   Bogdan Staszak <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Electronics & Communications:
                             Dawid Staskiewicz <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Environment Engineering:
                                  Marek Sowinski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Industrial Electrotechnics:
                                  Pawel Sniatala <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Internal Combustion Engines and Elements of Machine:
                                   M. Morzynski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics:                 Henryk Gorka <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mechanical Engineering Technology:
                                   Robert Cieslinski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physics:                    L. Kruszewska <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Technology and Building Structure:
                                       Witold Kakol <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Working Machines:              prof. Osmolski <[e-mail]>
 Office of the Dean of Chemical Technology Fac.:
                               Bartlomiej Woyke <[e-mail]>
 Office of the Dean of Electrical Enginering Fac.:
                               Bartlomiej Woyke <[e-mail]>
 University Computing Center:       Bartlomiej Woyke <[e-mail]>

SUPERCOMPUTING AND NETWORKING CENTER POZNAN:
                        Cezary Mazurek, Janusz Kaczmarek <[e-mail]>

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS:        Michal Walczak <[e-mail]>

UNIVERSITY OF FINE ARTS:                                   [e-mail]

--------------------------- RZESZOW -----------------------------------------

RZESZOW PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY:  Piotr Forys <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics:                           [e-mail]
 Inst. of Physics:                           [e-mail]
 Inst. of Technics:                            [e-mail]
 Library:                                    [e-mail]

RZESZOW TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY:        Jerzy Kus <[e-mail]>

RZESZOW BRANCH OF MARIA CURIE SKLODOWSKA UNIVERSITY:
                                                    [e-mail]

RZESZOW BRANCH OF KRAKOW ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE:      [e-mail]

--------------------------- SOPOT -------------------------------------------

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Inst. of Oceanology:                  Jacek Piskozub <[e-mail]>

UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK
 Main Library:                  Waldemar Chrzan <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- SZCZECIN ----------------------------------------

UNIVERSITY OF SZCZECIN
 University Computing Center:   Roman Kruszynski <[e-mail]>

--------------------------- TORUN -------------------------------------------

GEOPHYSICS:                Waldemar Ogonowski <[e-mail]>

HIGH SCHOOL #4

NASK - RES. AND ACAD. COMPUTER NETWORK:
                                    Zbigniew S. Szewczak <[e-mail]>

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY:         Zbyszek Szewczak <[e-mail]>
 Astronomical Observatories::        Andrzej Marecki <[e-mail]>
 Computer Center:                     Maja Gorecka <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Astronomy:                Jerzy Borkowski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics:             Tomasz Wolniewicz <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physics:                       Jacek Kobus <[e-mail]>
 University Library:                  Andrzej Kaczor <[e-mail]>
 University President's Computerization Team:
                                Jerzy B. Ludwichowski <[e-mail]>

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Astrophysics Lab. I:
                                                     [e-mail]

POWER AND HEAT PLANT:                     Grzegorz Kopcewicz <?@pec.torun.pl>

--------------------------- WARSZAWA ----------------------------------------

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING INC., (ATM):            [e-mail]
 ATM - Comercial Internet in Poland:
                                    Darek Wichniewicz <[e-mail]>

CENTRAL INST. FOR LABOUR PROTECTION:                   [e-mail]

CENTRAL PLANNING OFFICE
 Data Processing Center

MILITARY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
 Computer Centre:                  Jacek Wisniewski <[e-mail]>

MINISTRY OF FINANCE
 Dept. of Informatics:                             <[e-mail]>

NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND:              [e-mail]
 Domain used for commercial users:                     [e-mail]
 NASK in Warsaw area:                           Irek Neska <[e-mail]>

THE PALACE OF YOUTH:                         Krzysztof Halasa <[e-mail]>

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 High Pressure Research Centre "Unipress":
                              Henryk Marciniak <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Biochemistry and Biophysics
 Inst. of Computer Science:       Krzysztof Anacki <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Fundamental Technological Research:
                                      Marek Pokulniewicz <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics                  Andrzej Pokrzywa <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physical Chemistry
 Inst. of Physics:                 Jacek Madajczyk <[e-mail]>
 Nencki Inst. of Experimental Biology:                  [e-mail]
 Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center:              [e-mail]
 Space Research Centre:                    Krystyna Hulewicz <[e-mail]>

SOLIDEX LTD.:                         Marek Cyzio <[e-mail]>

STATE COMMITTEE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH:                 [e-mail]

"TCH SYSTEMS" AND "TCH COMPONENTS":      Wojciech Piecek <[e-mail]>

TVP S.A.:                                  Michal Pegierski <[e-mail]>

UNIV-COMP LTD.
 Telecomunications Dept.:         Zbigniew Kobylski <[e-mail]>

WARSAW AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY - SGGW:
                                   Piotr Wroblewski <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Land Reclamation and Environmental Engineering.:
                                        Roman Kaminski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computer Science and Econometrics:
                                   Piotr Wroblewski <[e-mail]>

WARSAW UNIVERSITY
 Astronomical Observatory:    Andrzej Udalski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Biophysics and Biochemistry:
                           Antek Laczkowski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Chemistry:               Pawel Lukomski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Psychology:                       [e-mail]
 Fac. of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics:
                                 Staszek Kurpiewski <[e-mail]>
 Heavy Ion Laboratory:                              [e-mail]
 Informatics Centre of Warsaw University:
                                    Leszek Imielski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics:      [e-mail]
 Inst. of Botany, Dept. of Phytosociology and Plant Ecology:
                               Tomek Wyszomirski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Botany, Dept. of Plant Taxonomy & Geography:
                               Wojciech Borkowski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physics:                       Rafal Pietrak <[e-mail]>
 Inst. for Social Studies:          Jacek Szamrej <[e-mail]>
 Interdisciplinary Centre for Math. and Comput. Modelling:
                                       Wojtek Sylwestrzak <[e-mail]>

WARSAW UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY:            Roman Adamiec <[e-mail]>
 Central Administration
 Computing Center:                          Roman Adamiec <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Technical Physics and Applied Mathematics:
                                              Piotr Zemlo <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Chemical Engineering       Andrzej Dlugosz <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Chemistry
 Fac. of Civil Engineering
 Fac. of Electronic Engineering (administration):
                                 [e-mail] (preferred - a program)
 Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Automatic Control:
                                     [e-mail] (preferred - program)

 Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Computer Science:
                                             Rafal Bajorek <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Electronic Fundamentals:
                                                     [e-mail]
 Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Micro- and Optoelectronics:
                                                    [e-mail]
 Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Radioelectronics:
                                     Janusz Marzec <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Telecommunication:
                                          Leszek Wronski <[e-mail]>
 Fac. of Geodesy and Cartography
 Fac. of Power and Aeronautical Eng.
 Inst. of Electron Technology:
                               Wojciech Lewandowski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Transportation
 Riviera - Students' Hostel:                     [e-mail]

--------------------------- WROCLAW -----------------------------------------

NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND:             [e-mail]

POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
 Inst. for Low Temperature & Structure Research:
                              Ludwik Biegala <[e-mail]>

TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW:              Jarek Kurowski <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Architecture:
                      Sergiusz Pawlowicz <[e-mail]>
 Dept. of Computer Science:                   Jarek Kurowski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Control and Systems Engineering:
                                           [e-mail]
 Inst. of Electronic Technology:    Zbigniew Helak <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Engineering Cybernetics:
                                  Witold Paluszynski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Materials Science and Technical Mechanics:
                            Wojciech Myszka <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mathematics:    Krzysztof Szajowski <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Mechanical Engineering and Automation:
                                  Wieslaw Caban <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry:  [e-mail]
 Inst. of Telecommunication and Acoustics:
                          Zygmunt Krawczyk <[e-mail]>

UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW
 Dept. of Theoretical Physics:                     <[e-mail]>
 Inst. of Computer Science:                               [e-mail]
 Inst. of Mathematics:           Kryspin Porembski <[e-mail]>
 Library                           Mariusz Ozarowski <[e-mail]>

ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS:                                 [e-mail]

BRANCH OF T.U. WROCLAW IN JELENIA GORA:
                         Maciej Pawlowski <[e-mail]>

ENGINEERING COLLEGE IN ZIELONA GORA:
                             Waldemar Wozniak <[e-mail]>

2. Fidonet ###############################################################
 ___________________________________________________________________________
|Node:    Name:                Location:   Sysop:               Phone:      |
|___________________________________________________________________________|

2:481/11  LOCKIE_BBS           Brzeg_Dolny Remigiusz Pokucinski 48-71-195808
2:481/15  EAGLE_BBS            Brzeg_Dolny Mariusz Ptasznik     48-71-192818
2:481/1   SM-Net_BBS           Bydgoszcz   Mariusz Boronski     48-52-411222
2:481/4   ATR_BBS              Bydgoszcz   Piotr Michal Kruza   48-52-438629
2:481/2   Technical_University Gdansk      Mariusz Matuszek     48-58-472109
2:481/13  ASTOR_BBS            Gdansk      Marek Kalmarczyk     48-58-572599
2:481/14  Rat_BBS              Gdansk      Daniel Dubielski     48-58-322900
2:480/25  PiK'us_BBS           Gliwice     Wojciech Apel        48-32-374144
2:481/17  Test_BBS             Gorzow_Wlkp Mariusz Dziakowicz   48-95-26924
2:480/34  The_Verbum_BBS       Katowice    Marek Gorny          48-32-586903
2:480/42  Nexter_BBS           Katowice    Klaudiusz Staniek    48-3-1537033
2:480/46  OTA_PSS              Katowice    Jacek Przybylo       48-32-597178
2:486/1   MULTISOFT_BBS        Krakow      Maciej Piotrowski    48-12-217620
2:486/3   Torreadore_BBS       Krakow      Miroslaw Majorek     48-12-367949
2:486/6   QUMAK_BBS            Krakow      Maciej Piotrowski    48-12-216273
2:486/7   LAVA_BBS             Krakow      Karol Olszanski      48-12-129534
2:486/9   ALF_BOARD            Krakow      Piotr Mamak          48-12-379066
2:486/18  Pc_duo_BBS           Krakow      Marek Sobol          48-12-214631
2:481/12  OCB283_BBS           Legnica     Marek Szenkaryk      48-76-541150
2:480/48  Fido_Lodz            Lodz        Radoslaw Machala     48-42-864647
2:480/8   WiRuSat_BBS          Opole       Piotr Rutkowski      48-77-39224
2:481/6   RBMeteo_BBS          Poznan      Jaroslaw Bernatowicz 48-61-496107
2:481/7   Apexim_BBS           Poznan      Mariusz Gieparda     48-61-771433
2:481/10  WSOSK_BBS            Poznan      Ireneusz Lupa        48-61-494719
2:480/4   Month_BBS            Warszawa    Andrzej Bursztynski  48-22-291578
2:480/10  Home_of_PCQ          Warszawa    Jan Stozek           48-22-410374
2:480/13  Spectrum_BBS         Warszawa    Tomasz Bursze        48-22-256965
2:480/14  Z-BBS                Warszawa    Andrzej Bursztynski  48-22-276333
2:480/19  Bajtek_BBS           Warszawa    Michal Szokolo       48-2-6284594
2:480/23  Galaxy_BBS           Warszawa    Jarek Wojcik         48-2-6431010
2:480/30  Imperial_BBS         Warszawa    Krzysztof Mlynarski  48-2-6176658
2:480/31  High_Quality_#1_BBS  Warszawa    Piotr Kaczorowski    48-22-250263
2:480/32  Acces_BBS            Warszawa    Darek Pruchniak      48-22-580417
2:480/33  Home_of_AMiga        Warszawa    Rafal Wiosna         48-22-339649
2:480/35  Post_Box_No.1_BBS    Warszawa    Tomasz Kepinski      48-22-424599
2:480/36  ZWK@LAB_BBS          Warszawa    Zbigniew W.Kaminski  48-22-465692
2:480/37  Time_BBS_Node_1      Warszawa    Sebastian Streich    48-2-6796457
2:480/38  Opus_BBS             Warszawa    Robert Trzeciak      48-22-188465
2:480/39  Rainbow_BBS          Warszawa    Krzysztof Korczak    48-2-6198337
2:480/40  The_Palace_of_Youth  Warszawa    Krzysztof Halasa     48-22-203372
2:480/41  Time_BBS_Node_2      Warszawa    Radoslaw Labanowski  48-22-188048
2:480/43  Fanatic_BBS          Warszawa    Ireneusz Lapinski    48-22-261983
2:480/44  Mamba_BBS            Warszawa    Wojtek Gorzkowski    48-22-367443
2:480/45  ICYE_BBS             Warszawa    Piotr Adamiak        48-22-409566
2:480/49  First_Aid_BBS        Warszawa    Krzysztof Szczepansk 48-2-6427851
2:480/50  PIKON                Warszawa    Piotr Konczewski     48-2-6350380
2:480/51  Sofcon_Mail          Warszawa    Artur Jerzy Olszewsk 48-22-475081
2:481/9   OWL_BBS              Wroclaw     Andrzej Zurakowski   48-71-448820
2:481/16  ALEX_BBS             Wroclaw     Alex Sell            48-71-686362
2:481/20  Ultimate_BBS         Wroclaw     Julia Woronkow       48-71-484191

The node addressing is given in Fido style, <zone:network/fidonode.point>.
Mail is gatewayed to Internet, and the equivalent domain style address is
<[e-mail]> where a,b,c,d are the
corresponding point, fidonode, network and zone numbers. The point is
optional and defaults to p0 if not specified. For example an address to the
user Jan Kowalski with an account in BitART BBS in Krakow is:
<[e-mail]>.


3. Public sites and servers ##############################################

You can access most WWW sites in Poland through http://www.fuw.edu.pl.

A sample of about 30 existing gophers:

gopher.cyfronet.krakow.pl - Akademickie Centrum Komputerowe "Cyfronet", Krakow
gopher.fuw.edu.pl        -  Physics Department, Warsaw University, Warsaw
gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl  -  Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Nicolaus
                              Copernicus University, Torun
gopher.uci.agh.edu.pl    -  University of Mining and Metalurgy, Krakow
mvax.ci.pwr.wroc.pl      -  Technical University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw
plearn.edu.pl            -  Warsaw University, Warszawa
prelude.iss.uw.edu.pl    -  Institute for Social Studies, Warsaw University
usctoux1.cto.us.edu.pl   -  Centrum Techniki Obliczeniowej Uniwersytetu
                              Slaskiego w Katowicach

Some ftp sites with contents:

alfa.camk.edu.pl             -  PIGULKI, dir: pub/pigulki; GUST
clipper.psych.uw.edu.pl      -  Clipper archive,  Novell - ftp.novell.felk.cz
                                mirror, Antyvirus
copernicus.astro.uni.torun.p -  European VLBI Newsletter, Images of the
                                strongest celestial radio sources
ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl            -  several mirrors, including SimTel
ftp.elka.pw.edu.pl           -  PLOTKI - archiwum
ftp.fuw.edu.pl               -
ftp.icm.edu.pl               -  X11R6 distribution, GNU mirror, FBPNews,
                                satellite weather images, netlib mirror,
                                tex mirror, sun public patches, RFC mirror
ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl          -  Linux (Slackware, SLS), Gnu, X11, elm, tin,
                                zip, less, some RFC, etc. Local lists,
                                humour
ftp.immt.pwr.wroc.pl         -  CD (1992) with Simtel, Windows (cica), GNU,
                                X11, Simtel(source), Prime Time Freeware (1993)
                                TeX (MeX, LaMeX, *.sty)
ftp.mimuw.edu.pl             -  MksVir Demo
ftp.nask.org.pl              -  main Internet router statistics
ftp.pg.gda.pl                -  750 MB - TeX, GNU, Linux (Slackware)
ftp.uci.agh.edu.pl           -  Linux, X11, Polish electronic press, 'religia'
                                list, GNU (binaries for SCO), X11, security
                                related docs, irc gifs
laserspark.anu.edu.au        -  Mleczko pictures, konkordat
poniecki.berkeley.edu        -  Polish Archives
sirius.astrouw.edu.pl        -  Acta Astronomica archive
sprocket.ict.pwr.wroc.pl     -  Linux Slackware 2.x mirror
zfja-gate.fuw.edu.pl         -  PA0GRI
zsku.p.lodz.pl               -  Pigulki

A complete listing of "Polish Interest Network Resources" (PZS) by Rafal
Maszkowski is posted irregularily to PZS distribution list located on
vm.cc.uni.torun.pl and can be retrieved by anonymous ftp and by gopher
at poniecki.berkeley.edu and gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl,
ftp.mat.uni.torun.pl. HTML version is available at
http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pzs/pzs.html,
http://info.fuw.edu.pl/pzs/pzs.html,
http://www.uci.agh.edu.pl/pzs/pzs.html,
http://zsku.p.lodz.pl/pzs/pzs.html or
http://laserspark.anu.edu.au/pzs.html.

-----------------

Please send changes and corrections to Rafal Maszkowski
<[e-mail]>.


========================================================================
Po prostu                                               by Dave Phillips

                 LEAVING THE BARBED WIRE BEHIND

I have a natural sympathy for pioneers. Most hate to punch a clock or
take orders, yet they're far from lazy, being willing to spend days with
little sleep on any problem that's important to them. Society dislikes
them. They don't fit in. They usually don't employ many people and they
usually don't have capital.

Society likes the people who can understand what pioneers do and who can
bankroll and coopt their work. Folks like Bill Gates and the early
Thomas Watson, for example. The Nikolai Teslas and Albert Einsteins, who
march decidedly to a different drummer, are either ignored but for small
circles of respectful students, or are celebrated for their
idiosyncracies but not for the dues they paid in perseverence and
sometimes persecution.

The American West was first "settled" (we won't discuss the genocide
against the native peoples here) by a combination of pioneers,
missionaries and criminals, in varying proportions. As the better land
became fully allocated to waves of new arrivals, there were conflicts
over land use and water use, especially between farmers and cattle-
owners who needed to graze their herds and drive them to market. Also,
as densities grew, the Al Gores of the day proposed a National
Transportation Infrastructure, and the West was crisscrossed by
railroads, publically financed or subsidized, who bled farmers, bribed
local officials, and who also helped intensify the development of the
vast continental spaces.

One major invention accompanied rail to close the West to pioneers.
Barbed wire of various types emerged over a decade in the latter part of
the 19th century. The clear application of this technology was to fence
off farms from hungry herds of cattle. This, along with the
centralization of meat packing brought by rail, let to the
solidification of land ownership and control in the West.

But barbed wire was soon put to more innovative uses. The British found
that fences not only kept steers out, but in the interests of preserving
the Empire could keep Boer women, children and elderly in, at least
until they died of disease. The U.S. Army, quick students of
international affairs, applied the same methods at home during miners'
strikes out West, inverting the technique by penning in the strikers and
allowing their families' freedom of movement - to starve, basically,
while company goons were allowed to steal relief food shipped in to
local churches.

Barbed wire achieved notoriety in the slaughterhouse of World War I
Europe, in which industrial technology and mass warfare combined to kill
much of a generation of Europe's males (and put a smaller dent in the
same age cohort of American males). German industrial efficiency
culminated in barbed wire's decorating each of the extermination,
transshipment and work camps built by the Third Reich, and we must add
that Vichy France, for example, did not forsake the American invention
in its concentration camps for its rounded-up Jews [EuroDisney is
therefore proper justice, more the sorrow, more the pity].

It is an interesting aside to note that none of the Nazis and their
smokestack barons (e.g., Krupp) were pioneers. Pioneers look for open
physical or mental space, shun confrontation and avoid the limelight.
They are woefully inept at "using the media," and could care less how
other people live. The Nazis were the precise opposite of pioneers: they
had a Plan, a Design, a Strategy, an Ideology, which covered geographic,
architectural, religious, intellectual and even genetic spaces, if one
can speak in these terms. Much too confining for any pioneer. Similarly,
pioneers are too busy creating to engage in long-running wars against
governments.... unlike the rightwing fuel-and-fertilizer Militias in
America's heartland, pioneers would sooner leave - or create their own
space - than fight. I knew some pioneers in 1980s Poland, creating
underground structures and alternative culture - their own space,
waiting for the commies to crumble, and I worked with some of the Polish
net-pioneers from about 1988. Pioneers are compelled to build, not
destroy.

Having been on the Net in one form or another these past eight years,
I'm getting a bit itchy watching Washington discuss first Gore's
National Information Infrastructure, then the Clipper chip, and more
recently wringing its hands over the misuse of the net by pedophiles. We
won't talk about the fact that statistically, young people are safer on
the net than young Congressional pages and staffers are working in the
Capitol. The attempt to legislate the Net, in any case, makes me cringe.

Apart from Washington developing net-angst, the information "railroads"
are busy forming trusts and looking for a large enough public teat to
enable them to fiber-link all of America, empowering the average
household to access dumbed-down interactive materials as well as an
endless supply of high drama (I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, I Dream of
Jeannie). The net is becoming privatized, inevitably, and the 'trusts'
are using monopoly rents derived from cable and phone franchises to
carve up the mass market and to concentrate control. I can live with an
oligopoly, because at least cyberpioneers can always carve out niches
where the behemoths are too slow or stupid to travel. The most worrisome
part of recent talks is the spectre of monitoring in the interest of
crime prevention and "public safety." I'm not sure to what degree
monitoring on a massive scale is technically feasible, but I don't think
I'd be surprised at the crunching and retrieval capacity of a network of
packet sniffers linked to secure computing facilities at Fort Meade,
Maryland. International links are routinely intercepted and monitored
now, and now there is talk of enabling routine intercept on a domestic
basis. Sounds like the cyber version of a camp to me.

The obvious response to my unease was given to me by a newspaper
reporter here, in a different context. Many in my academic department,
located in a part of the campus where all World University Games
athletes were to be housed, refused to release personal information to a
private outfit tasked with security vetting for the Games a couple of
years ago. I attempted to interest this reporter in the privacy and
human rights angle of this story. I, for one, would have told the State
Police anything they might want to know, as they have jurisdiction and I
agreed security was important. But a rentacop outfit in my mind had no
business accessing personal info on me in any way, shape or form. This
Buffalo News reporter said she felt that anyone objecting to this
obviously necessary screening procedure must have something to hide.
Apart from the fact that she closely identified with the Games, she
epitomized the herd notion that if you've nothing to hide, Don't Worry,
Be Happy. As it turned out, our point was taken by the University, we
did not have to release this information, and I was allowed access to
our facilities during the Games, (running a gauntlet of checkpoints),
and I even received by Kafkaesque mistake a form letter thanking me for
volunteering at the Games.

Where will the pioneers go? The Net is clearly getting, or will get, not
only crowded but homogenized and controlled. The wonderful thing about
pioneers is that they are creative and unpredictable. I can, however,
suggest a couple of possible paths.

The more hacking-orientated pioneers have already moved into
cryptographic tech. PGP seems to give the Feds heartburn. I can't
believe that NSA, which has been following the development of these
algorithms since the late Seventies, can't hack them, but perhaps they
detest the cost. I can see pioneers encrypting with independent systems
simply to preserve their inner space and autonomy.

Some pioneers will exploit the inevitable geographic lag in net
concentration to help redefine the direction the Net is taking in other
countries. For example, Poland's Net is still young and not yet ossified
by turf-fighting bureaucracies. If the bureaucrats would just retire or
emigrate, Poland could become a data-Switzerland. If America's net gets
regulated or privatized into mass conformity, some pioneers will look
elsewhere for creative outlets and inspiration.

Other pioneers will undoubtably create their own global or local
'internets' - possibly closed nets based on public key encryption and
authentication, perhaps satellite based. Clearly, space of a different
kind, and open to others who accept the minimal rules.

One area I hope will see an influx of pioneers is scholarship. Anyone in
the social sciences has seen massive amounts of herdthink in many
disciplines. Hemlines are up this year, down next year. Deans weigh
vitas by the pound, counting published article for tenure and promotion
review. Provosts have surgery to enable them to speak concurrent
sentences from each side of their mouths. And pure scholarship has been
devalued in favor of the treadmill of grantgetting and trend-sniffing.
Our society needs people who can read, think, discuss ideas and issues
on their own merits, and who can cheerfully admit that they might be
wrong, even if they don't think so. People who can teach and inspire and
not just punch tickets so the kids can move along and not bother them
too much. People who can point out the rather unfashionable lessons from
history, to a people who believe that history is contemptuously
unimportant and impractical.

Old cultures who maintained traditions of scholarship have survived to
the present day, despite persecution and extermination. Our mass society
seems to be eroding scholarship and we do so at our peril. Perhaps
pioneers can help us, be they refugees from the net or academia or
wherever spaces are being closed and constricted by mass conformity or
barbed wire.

- Dave Phillips


Note: This essay is dedicated to my friend Scott Stevenson, who died in
Oct 1994 at the age of 39. An autodidact, Unix consultant, ham operator,
photographer and pioneer in spirit, he never made it to see Australia,
but I hope he's there now.

========================================================================
Letter to the Editor                                      Jacek Gajewski


             INTERNET FOR HIGH SCHOOLS (IdS)


                                                       Fri, 03 Feb 1995

Ladies and Gentlmen,

The Physics Department of Warsaw University has launched a project named
'IdS' with the goal of enabling inexpensive access to the Internet for
the high schools in Poland. After being taught basic services, students
will be motivated to use them, e.g. in interschool projects and during
lectures using Internet resources. Schools will be using a 'call-back'
modem connectivity to the nearest IdS dial-up node - so their own costs
will be minimal. The employees of the Physics Department will organize
and run the central IdS node. They will disseminate their know-how to
the similar initiative groups which emerge throughout the country. The
cost of running the IdS nodes will be covered from different sources: by
Polish and foreign sponsors, international organisations and government
subsidies.

Jacek Gajewski <[e-mail]>

========================================================================
The Back Page                                        By Jurek Klimkowski


               Travelog: THE SABBATH ON BALD MOUNTAIN

                           Part One of Three

It was windy, wet and quite chilly. Slopes of the mountain were almost
void of vegetation. Only pines covering parts of the high meadow gave it
a somewhat green tinge. The landscape, with its bald rocks, damp and
gray, was almost deprived of any color pallet. It was this emptiness of
the layers of barren, large stones that gave this place its name: the
Bald Mountain.

Witches, fauns and devils were coming from the sky. Brooms and flying
carpets kept landing on the slope with a terrible screech. Their
occupants disembarked one by one, greeting each other ceremoniously.
Many travellers, with a great fear, looked toward a monastery complex on
a neighboring Holy Cross mountain. The raw power emanating from that
ancient structure was impossible to ignore. Some, although they could
just as well see right through the thick walls of the monastery, were
rather puzzled by the view of many paraphernalia housed inside.

One, small devil greeted a witch:

"!Buenas dias!", and pointing toward the other mountain asked:

"?Santa Cruz?"

"Si, diabelku." answered the witch to whom the question was addressed.

"?Ablas ustedes Espagnol?", little devil was quite inquisitive.

"A jakze," replied the witch with a smile.

But the devil was not convinced, so he pointed toward a corpse displayed
inside a dark hall of a large building on the mountain of Holy Cross and
asked:

"?Lenin?"

The witch went to a frenzy, speaking the language the devil not only
could not understand, but never thought possible. Fast sequences of very
strange, hissing sounds were interspersed with sounds of rusted steel
plates rubbing against each other, followed by chime-like, beautifully-
sounding clear nasal vowels. Her hands, while she was speaking, made
circles in the air, reminiscent of windmills in a stormy weather. The
devil was dumbstruck. He couldn't make sense of a snake-long word:

"Shpeekschaangeevishneevitskee (1)", which truly did not sound like
anything a man or a beast could come up with; obviously the centerpiece
of the tirade addressed to him. Just a small sample of to what levels
the small talk has risen to in this strange land.

"Aaaa, cie choroba, this must be Fra Montevideo." A jovial figure was
quickly moving toward the embarrassed little devil.

"Rokita! Oh my saint, Pan Rokita, how glad I am to see you!" Montevideo
was ecstatic to see his master and the role model, as we all are as long
as they, our masters, remain in good sprits. "Did you have a pleasant
trip from the Mardi Gras here, Sir?"

Rokita, or as he was respectfully called: Pan Bies Rokita, approached
the other two. He bowed politely to the witch, who curtsied him, only to
be totally ignored. He grabbed Montevideo by his armpits, lifted him in
the air and kissed him, three times on cheeks so enthusiastically, that
it would have been more appropriate for an early-adolecsent sexual
exploit then for the site of the official conference which was about to
begin on the Bald Mountain. Yet, in this strange place, this behavior
did not truly surprise anybody. By then, the slope was crowded with
fauns, devils and witches, engaged in agitated discussions. They greeted
arriving witches by kissing their hands. Some fauns did kiss each other
on cheeks, just as Rokita has done. What was rather typical for this
gathering was this mix of talking and aerobics warmup -hands especially-
which together with the sounds of the strange language most of them were
using created an image of an outing from Hell, as indeed, it really was
one.

Montevideo discreetly wiped saliva off his cheeks and glimpsed at his
mentor's outfit. It was of the most exquisite kind. A long gown made of
pressed oriental satin, was drawn over a silk shirt. This shirt, a light
but very expensive garment, together with an astounding wraparound belt
made of precious turkish brocade held his belly in check. This belt, in
turn, supported an assortment of pistols, cleavers and what not,
armament which served as a mere stand by, in case an awesome sabre Bies
kept in an mother-of-pearl-covered scabbard could not be unsheathed in
time.  Down, below Cossack-style lose pants were tucked into yellow,
heavy leather boots. Bies' shaved head was covered with an enormous fur
hat, definitely a polecat, of such a high quality, that it looked as if
it was alive, almost ready to jump and bite.

"What do you mean? I've been here for last 1,029 years and I don't know
where this Mardi Gras of yours is," responded Rokita with some
irritation in his baritone voice.  "This meeting on Bald Mountain is a
conference. We have to make some momentous decisions regarding this land
and this is why I am wearing my official uniform."

"Uhm, uhm", Montevideo was trying to erase quickly the bad impression he
has made on his master. "Are those decisions of a secular, or of a
religious kind, Sir?"

"Both, my dear friend, both", responded the latter. "And, of course, the
order to deal with these problems came from the very top."

Montevideo nervously glimpsed toward Holy Cross Mountain. This did not
escape his mentor's attention. Bies smiled jovially and said:

"Oh don't worry, my little devil, they also got the word. They have to
obey." Suddenly Bies' eyes flashed, he leaned over Montevideo, with his
face almost touching that of his pupil's and yelled on the top of his
lungs:

"We are going to place Hell where it really belongs and leave those
people here in peace, Mociumpanie! A secular, modern, liberal state
based on the rule of the law, Mociumpanie! A solid market economy for
this land, Mociumpanie! Or we, devils and witches of this World, are out
of business! That's right, you heard me correctly, we have to do some
good, for our own sake, for the sake of the General Directive and this
is, indeed, an order from the Highest Authority!"

"In such case, my Master, rest assured of my outmost devotion to this
undertaking. You can count on me, Sir." Montevideo had stars in his
eyes.

"Cie choroba, I knew that, my little devil!" The jovial baritone once
again thundered over the mountain, and again Rokita grabbed Montevideo
by armpits, lifted him in the air and kissed him, three times on cheeks
so feverishly that they became wet again.

"You are like a son to me." he repeated several times. Half-conscious
Fra could barely hear that.

The witch listened very attentively to their conversation. She wanted to
ask some questions of Bies, before Beelzebub, Lucifer and Belshazzar,
who already arrived in a puff of smoke, would make it impossible. All
three were walking toward Bies and his companions. The crowd on the
mountainside became very, very quiet...

"Couldn't they do it?", she hissed with a nod of her head toward the
Mountain of the Holy Cross.

"Apparently not." Rokita whispered his reply while looking at the
dignitaries he wanted to greet very ceremoniously. All eyes were on them
now, but Lucifer, the most beautiful of all devils, made a swift
gesture, as if to cut the air. He wished the three to continue their
discussion.

"Madam", Rokita turned to the witch, "we go by what we see and the time
is running short."

Belshazzar approached them, bowed his head to the witch and said:

"There is, perhaps, a little more to it than what my esteemed colleague
just so eloquently elucidated. Permit me, Madam, to explain it in a more
precise terms. We, so to speak, have seen the handwriting on the wall
and alerted the Highest Authority to it." His English was an impeccable
Etonian. "We recently became aware of certain misdeeds and false steps
committed by our Opposition, which, as it appears to us, at this moment,
may, just may, stand in a way of effective incorporation of the social
empiricism into the overall political solution for this land; a solution
sought by all interested parties at present."

The witch was numb. She didn't understand much of what was said, but
felt that some dismal failure occurred and would have to be corrected in
a very delicate manner, lest all tumble down into oblivion.

"Are we talking of a compromise, My Lord?" The witch was bewildered.

"Yes and no, my child", responded Lucifer to whom the question was
addressed. "We are talking of a compromise which is a fulcrum of any
civilization, but it is the civilization we are really talking about."

Turning to the very quiet crowd which hang upon every world spoken by
him, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness spoke these words:

"In order to move Hell from here to the place it belongs we will have to
do some good for the mortals of this land. We promised this to the
Highest Authority and I shall be personally responsible. This is the
only way we can redeem ourselves in the eyes of the World!"

Crowd cheered the leader enthusiastically and the applause turned into
prolonged chants: "Walesa, Walesa... Waaleeensssaa!", but Lucifer, once
again cut the air with his hand and muttered: "Not now."

"Our Opposition, esteemed and loyal, as ever, was also told, in no
uncertain terms, that things in this land have to get much better and
that ever-elusive dignity has to return to the people.

"We stand, here and now, committed to assure that the secret ballot
shall remain the sole source of real power for any mortal. In essence,
no dignitary, chairman, or any other person will be ever again allowed
to reign over others beyond the actual mandate defined by the
electorate. Furthermore, the free election shall stand as the only
guarantor of the social empiricism that drives the collective need for
material and spiritual betterment of human kind, as well as a constant
remainder of the presence of the devil in human lives."

The crowd was swept by a wave of humor. Lucifer realized his slip of
tongue. He composed himself and continued:

"Let me rephrase that. I meant to say that the free and otherwise
uncompromised ballot should be the sole method of combating the ever-
present evil, or misery and misfortune, mortals tend to inflict upon
each other completely outside of the General Directive. In essence, we
will have to free the imperfect ones to seek their own fortunes through
the common solutions they would freely commit themselves at the polls.

"That can be achieved only if their actions remain free of this stupid,
doctrinaire zeal our Opposition so callously spread among the imperfect
ones. Similarly, discrimination and prejudice have to yield to
objectivity, merit and compromise.

"Our Opposition, as well as their Robed Servants, will heretofore
restrain themselves from their overemphasis of its millennia-old General
Directive and recognize that for the very primitive mortals the
Directive is often unclear on specifics, overreaching and, in more
inopportune situations, like the now famous case of adultery, very
impractical."

Prince of Darkness laid his hand on a shoulder of his trusted friend,
Mephistopheles, who arrived late, and encouraged him to speak, but a
voice from the crowd called:

"Your Lordship, so how is it that our own recruitment, free choice for
humans and the overall improvement in Poland mesh together? Is there any
connection?"

Mephistopheles needed no encouragement:

"Don't be a silly bunny, Mr. Diabelczuk! Study the General Directive and
you will find no solid connection between Christianity and democracy. It
was left for all of us to figure out... and the answer is, for all of
you C-students, free choice. We, the devils, are all about free choice!
No devil, no evil, no democracy, no improvement... simple as that."

His explanation did not seem to satisfy the devil in the crowd.

"Your Lordship, but if it is all in black and white, than what kind of
choice is there? .... Incidentally, my name is Diabelczak."

"Mr. Diabelkacz, nothing is black or white, it is in shades of gray.
High-order differential, locally discreet and always nonlinear chaotic
equations, no definite answers are valid here, because the situation
changes all the time.

"Our Esteemed Opposition is dressed in white, but they make their Robed
Servants wear black, why do you think it is, Mr. Diabelkacz?

"Go figure.... to avoid competition .... avoid responsibility ...
Incidentally, my name is D i a b e l c z a k."

"Close, Mr. Diabolak, close."


[ to be continued ]

 --------------------------------------------------

(1) "Shpeekschaangeevishneevitskee" = (phonetically) "Spi ksiaze
Wisniowiecki" = Prince Wisniowiecki lies in state; on the mountain
of Holy Cross the corpses of Prince Jarema Wisniowiecki and his son
Michal Korybut, onetime king of Poland and Great prince of Lithuania,
are kept in caskets which are often open for public view, in a Lenin-
tomb manner.


========================================================================
Notes on Contributors

     Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, born 1951 in Bydgoszcz. An economics major,
     he graduated from Economics College in Sopot. Prime Minister from
     January to December 1991. A minister for European Integration in
     Suchocka government (July - November 1992), he is presently the
     Polish representative in the European Bank for Reconstruction and
     Development in London.

     Marek Cypryk ([e-mail]) is a scientist (polymer
     chemistry) in the Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies of
     the Polish Academy of Sciences in Lodz, Poland and a contributing
     editor of PIGULKI. He was a co-founder and editor of POGLADY,
     Solidarity magazine of Lodz (1980-81).

     Jacek Gajewski <[e-mail]> is a physicist at the
     Physics Department of Warsaw University. Jacek took an active part
     in the "Bitnet to Poland" efforts in its early stages, and presently
     he is the main driving force in the Internet For Schools (IdS)
     organization.

     Joanna Horowska graduated in English studies from the Lodz
     University. She works as a translator  in the Interpreters and
     Translators Agency ALIANS in Lodz and is a president of the Wojtek
     Wadowski Foundation which provides help for autistic children.

     Jurek Klimkowski ([e-mail]) lives in Glen Allen, VA.
     His "travelogues" graced the POLAND-L list in 1990. He is Pigulki's
     Back Page Editor.

     Rafal Maszkowski ([e-mail]) graduated from Nicolaus
     Copernicus University in Torun. His speciality is astronomy, his
     hobby - travelling the Netland. Presently he works at the Onsala
     Space Observatory at the Chalmers Polytechnic in Goteborg.

     Dave Phillips ([e-mail]) of Kenmore NY was active in
     the movements to support NSZZ "Solidarnosc," was a cofounder of the
     EARN/ Poland Link Discussion Group, and is a cofounder and an
     editor of Pigulki. An economic geographer, he runs Niagara Cyber, a
     research and informatics consultancy in Western New York.

     Radek Sikorski ([e-mail]) was born in Bydgoszcz in
     1963. Graduated from Oxford University, he was a foreign
     correspondent in Afganistan, Angola and Yugoslavia in 1986-89.
     Vice-Minister of Defense in Olszewski government, he writes for
     Rzeczpospolita, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, The
     Spectator, The Economist, and has a "Interview of the Month"
     program in Polish TV. Together with his parents and wife, Anne
     Applebaum, he is restoring an antique mansion in Chobielin.

     Teresa Toranska, born a wanderer, educated a lawyer, works as
     a journalist, fond of prying into other's lifes. She begun her
     travel in Wolkowysk (In Poland, Soviet Union and Byelorussia, in
     this order), then: Szczecinek, Sulechow, Swiebodzin, Bialystok,
     Warszawa, Paris, Boston, New York and Washington... Out of chance
     created "Europe for $100", a 1975 bestseller; from spite: "Seen
     from Below" (1998), a collection of essays on Gierek's "decade of
     success"; out of despair, after the Martial Law was declared:
     "They", a collection of interwiews, bestseller of the underground
     publishing, translated into 13 languages. And now - "We". "My" can
     be obtained from the author (703-242-9857 or send e-mail to
     [e-mail])

     Maciej Zakrzewski is a student at Lodz University (major: History).
     He moonlights as translator and interpreter.

     Marek Zielinski ([e-mail]) of Rego Park, NY is
     a chemist and a contributing editor of Pigulki. He was a founding
     member of the EARN-Poland link discussion group in 1987, and was
     co-founder and editor of POGLADY, Solidarity magazine of Lodz
     (1980-81). On IRC he is known as Pigularz.

=========================================================================

                          ABOUT PIGULKI

Editors                                      EMAIL
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    Jerzy Klimkowski (Glen Allen, VA, USA)   [e-mail]
    Dave  Phillips   (Kenmore, NY, USA)      [e-mail]
    Jacek Ulanski    (Lodz, Poland)          [e-mail]
    Marek Zielinski  (Rego Park, NY, USA)    [e-mail]
Production Editor, Postscript edition
    Wojtek Hempel    (Rego Park, NY, USA)

PIGULKI Authorized Distributors
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   PIGULKI's editors are grateful to the following people for making
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========================================================================