The Case of the Mountain Climbers

On February 9 the trial of five Warsaw University graduate students began at Warsaw’s Palace of Justice. The accused: Maciez Kozlowski, an archeologist; Jakub Karpinski, son of a well-known architect; Christophe Szymbuski, a teaching assistant in physics; Maria Szpakowska, studying for a doctorate in philosophy, and Maria Tworkowska. These five were among fifty students and young teachers arrested last summer. A few—notably, the son of the head of the official Polish writers’ organization—have been released. It is expected that the others will be brought to trial in batches, though perhaps without public sessions. Attendance at this first trial is restricted to those directly involved, a few representatives of the official press, and a single Western reporter, Bernard Margueritte, Warsaw correspondent of Agence France Press, the official French news agency.

At 5 a.m. January 27, the Czech secret police arrested the young Czech journalist, Jiri Lederer, an admirer of Alexander Dubcek, who wrote for the suppressed magazine, Literarm Listy, chief organ of Czechoslovakia’s brief and poignant “Spring.” Two other young Czech writers were picked up the same day. The Czech press has linked these arrests to the Warsaw trial, finding significance in the fact that Lederer was Literarni Listy’s Warsaw correspondent in April 1968.

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James Burnham

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On February 9 the trial of five Warsaw University graduate students began at Warsaw’s Palace of Justice. The accused: Maciez Kozlowski, an archeologist; Jakub Karpinski, son of a well-known architect; Christophe Szymbuski, a teaching assistant in physics; Maria Szpakowska, studying for a doctorate in philosophy, and Maria Tworkowska. These five were among fifty students and young teachers arrested last summer. A few—notably, the son of the head of the official Polish writers’ organization—have been released. It is expected that the others will be brought to trial in batches, though perhaps without public sessions. Attendance at this first trial is restricted to those directly involved, a few representatives of the official press, and a single Western reporter, Bernard Margueritte, Warsaw correspondent of Agence France Press, the official French news agency.

At 5 a.m. January 27, the Czech secret police arrested the young Czech journalist, Jiri Lederer, an admirer of Alexander Dubcek, who wrote for the suppressed magazine, Literarm Listy, chief organ of Czechoslovakia’s brief and poignant “Spring.” Two other young Czech writers were picked up the same day. The Czech press has linked these arrests to the Warsaw trial, finding significance in the fact that Lederer was Literarni Listy’s Warsaw correspondent in April 1968.