Intercultural experiences in the east – Warsaw

During our hunt for train tickets from Warsaw to Poznan, in the main train station of Munich, I suddenly got pushed by a (drunk?) Polish male, around 40years old. He asked me: “Why do you have a patch (=sticker on backpack) showing Che Guevara? We do not like him here! We do not like Communism! Take it off!” As I tried to explain him that I did not feel anything positive, nor negative, towards communism, but that I had only put it on because I had been to Argentina, he did not believe me and told me to take it off again. “We do not like communism here! You should know that we used to have communism and we did not like it.” He then walked off and luckily we did not have any other problems with anti-communist people afterwards. Except maybe, for a 60-year old drunk Polish guy on the bus in Krakow, shouting to the whole bus that some people facing him, no one of our group though, were communists, just as the mayor of Krakow and that they would destroy the city.

I understand that communism was overthrown only twenty years ago, while it overruled Poland for more than 40years, but I do think that some people, mostly elderly, still live with the fear that one day it might come back. Stop looking to the past, stop looking at what happened, but use that past, use that (negative) experience to deploy and develop yourself and your country to a bright new future! 

Ernesto 'el Che' Guevara