While prying through some personal files late one night last week in the local IPN branch I came across one that caught my eye. It was the file of a certain university professor, doctor… well, let us call him “Dr. Wykształciuch” for the sake of discretion. The top sheet was his CV and at the top of his CV was his father’s name and occupation. Your background was very important in Communist Poland, of course. Priority was given, at least in theory, to the sons and daughters of workers and peasants. Needless to say, in the bad old days before democracy one’s birth was very important in Poland as elsewhere. But now, in free, democratic Poland, grown men still tell their prospective employers what Daddy did for a living? The ruling parties talk seriously about judging people by the role their families played in the anti-Communist opposition…

I sometimes wonder if Poland has grown or ever will grow into a republic.