The Workers' Defence Committee. Strength in Unity

From 23 September to 14 October 2026 the History Meeting House showed 19 panels on the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR) on Krakowskie Przedmieście at the corner of Karowa Street; the exhibition opened fifty years to the day after KOR was founded.

The History Meeting House on the exhibition:

On 23 September 2026, exactly 50 years after the founding of the Workers’ Defence Committee and the publication of the “Appeal to Society and the Authorities of the Polish People’s Republic”, the second edition of an open-air exhibition devoted to the workers’ protests of June 1976 and the activity of KOR will open on Krakowskie Przedmieście, at the corner of Karowa Street.

The exhibition tells the story of one of the most important experiences of the Polish democratic opposition - from the revolt of the workers of Radom, Ursus and Płock in June 1976, through the founding of KOR in September of the same year, to the dissolution of the Committee during the First National Congress of the “Solidarity” trade union in September 1981.

It is the story of a civil society taking shape: organising help for the persecuted, breaking the state’s monopoly on information, independent printing and education, the work of the Intervention Bureau, cooperation with the Free Trade Unions and with the opposition in other countries of the Soviet bloc. It is also the story of people whose everyday, grassroots work prepared the ground for the mass social movement that “Solidarity” became.

What to expect

This was a street exhibition: 19 panels of archival photographs and documents, set up outdoors rather than in a gallery. According to the museum the panels also carried the voices of participants and witnesses, a timeline and short biographies of the members of KOR and of its successor, KSS “KOR”. The curators were Maria Krawczyk and Katarzyna Bizacka; the partner was the KARTA Centre Foundation. The show was first put up in 2016, and the museum called the 2026 showing its second edition.

The panels ran in order, from June 1976 to KOR’s dissolution in 1981 and beyond. Four of them, all named in the museum’s description:

• “Information centre” - Jacek Kuroń’s flat as the hub from which news of the repression reached Radio Free Europe and the BBC, among others.
• “Intervention Bureau” - Zofia and Zbigniew Romaszewski and their team documenting human rights abuses and organising help.
• “NOWa beyond censorship” - the Independent Publishing House, which the museum describes as the first publisher in the country to print outside state censorship.
• “The decade’s punchline” - former KOR members meeting at Kuroń’s home on 19 September 1986 to mark the Committee’s tenth anniversary.

A brochure accompanied the exhibition: the third, revised edition of a publication by the museum and the KARTA Centre Foundation. The museum did not say where it was available or what it cost.

Context

In June 1976 the communist government announced food price rises; workers in Radom, Ursus (then a town outside Warsaw, now one of its districts) and Płock answered with strikes and street protests, and the state answered with brutal repression, dismissals and trials. In September 1976 fourteen people signed an appeal founding the Workers’ Defence Committee, among them the activist Jacek Kuroń, the literary historian Jan Józef Lipski, the poet Stanisław Barańczak, the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski and the priest Jan Zieja. KOR raised money and found lawyers and doctors for the workers and their families, and in September 1977 it became the Committee for Social Self-Defence “KOR” (per Wikipedia and its Polish edition).

Its circle produced underground newsletters, the NOWa publishing house and the Flying University, a series of unofficial lectures. Wikipedia calls KOR a precursor and inspiration for Solidarity. If you know the Gdańsk shipyard strikes of August 1980 but not what came before them, these panels filled in the four missing years.

What the press says

As of 23 September 2026, the opening day, no review had appeared, and none could be found by the time the exhibition closed. It was announced in February, when the anniversary programme was launched, under the working title “KOR. Siła w jedności”, and a Polish Press Agency (PAP) report described it the day before it opened. No English-language coverage could be found; all three items are in Polish:

• Informator Stolicy (24.02.2026, compiled by IS): the Warsaw news site listed the exhibition as the September item in the year-long anniversary programme, alongside the June open-air show “Niepokorne 1976-1989” on women in the opposition - Warsaw celebrates the 50th anniversary of KOR
• um.warszawa.pl (23.02.2026, unsigned): the website of the City of Warsaw, which prepared the anniversary programme, announced that the exhibition would open on the 50th anniversary of the Appeal - 50th anniversary of the Workers’ Defence Committee
• dzieje.pl (22.09.2026, PAP, based on the organiser’s material): the report presented the exhibition as the story of a civil society taking shape, from the protests in Radom, Ursus and Płock to the Committee’s dissolution in 1981 - The History Meeting House has prepared the exhibition “The Workers’ Defence Committee - Strength in Unity”

Updates

• 2026-10-15 - the exhibition closed on 14 October; the museum moved it to its “Past exhibitions” list with the dates 23.09-14.10.2026 (source: museum’s exhibition list, in Polish)
• 2026-09-23 - the exhibition opened; the museum moved it to its “Current exhibitions” list with the dates 23.09-14.10.2026 (source: museum’s exhibition list, in Polish)

After the show

The exhibition was the second edition of a show from 2016: according to the museum’s programme page (in Polish) it was first shown then, and in 2026 it returned to Krakowskie Przedmieście as part of the City of Warsaw’s programme for the 50th anniversary of KOR’s founding. As of 15 October 2026 the museum had announced no next venue. The accompanying brochure is the third, revised edition of a publication by the museum and the KARTA Centre Foundation; the exhibition page gives neither an ISBN nor a price.

No reviews could be found. On the Polish history site dzieje.pl (in Polish), a Polish Press Agency report of 22 September 2026 presented the show as the story of a civil society taking shape, from the revolt of the workers of Radom, Ursus and Płock to the Committee’s dissolution in 1981. The museum has published no attendance figure and announced no awards.

On now at the History Meeting House, in its gallery at Karowa 20:

• The ’80s Look at Us - women’s lives in 1980s Poland through the work of women photojournalists and artists, prepared with the Women’s Archive; until 21 February 2027.
• Melusines from the Blocks. Fashion and Music in the 1980s - six Polish pop stars of the 1980s, from Kora to Izabela Trojanowska, and their stage style; until 21 February 2027.

The museum is also still publishing its series “AHM o KOR” (in Polish): recordings with KOR members and collaborators from its Oral History Archive, with a new episode on the fourth Monday of each month until December 2026.

On a related theme elsewhere:

• Photocopy and Hand Out! Zines and the Independent Press in Poland During the Transition - Caricature Museum: zines and the independent press of the 1980s and 1990s, what grew out of the underground press whose beginnings the panels on “Free speech” and NOWa showed; until 15 November 2026.
• Freedom Is Within Us - Museum of Cursed Soldiers: martial law in Pavilion XII of the former Mokotów prison, where opposition activists were held after 13 December 1981, the chapter that the panel on KOR members after the Committee only touched on.

Museum profile: History Meeting House.