Colloquia Theologica Ottoniana

Father dr Władysław Siwek (Society of Jesus) belongs to priests who signed up very clearly in the history of Szczecin and in the memory of its citizens. He worked in the city in the years 1950–1970 (with a break in the years 1955 to 1956, when the monks of the Society of Jesus were expelled by the communist authorities). For 1955, took care of the academic ministry after his return in 1957 he returned to the old duties, and additionally was appointed diocesan chaplain for health professionals. With a thorough education and personal charisma Father Siwek was able to create a strong foundation for independent ideological beliefs of people under his charge. His lasting achieve ment was forming around him a group of people with a clear anticommunist opinion, who in subsequent years were a kind of Catholic elite in Szczecin. These people built the foundations of an “independent society”, contributing to the democratic opposition of the seventies, the eighties and joined the great social movement that led to the downfall of communism in Poland, which was the “Solidarity”. Father Siwek was in 1970 moved to Bydgoszcz religious instruction, and then to Warsaw, where he died on July 16, 1973.