Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.

This is Cold War Conversations. If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to first-hand Cold War history accounts.

Do make sure you follow us in your podcast app or join our emailing list

at cold warconversations.com. In this episode we welcome back Gillian Cox who told us about

her student trip to East Germany in 1989. The story continues with her trip further east into Poland.

At this point, Poland's communist Polish United Workers Party

had abandoned its monopoly of power in April.

Elections in June 1989 resulted in the Free Trade Union solidarity securing 35% of the seats available

to it, with the remaining 65% divided between the Polish United Workers Party and its

satellite parties.

The first round of voting took place on the same day that the Chinese communist government unleashed

the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Before we start, I'd like to thank our latest patrons, Brendan and Daniel Neville,

who are supporting the podcast with their monthly donations starting from a pound or a dollar.

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then you can also help by leaving a review in iTunes or with your favorite podcast provider.

It really helps us get new guests on the show. So back to today's

episode, we join my Cold War conversation with Gillian Cox as she crosses the East German border

into Poland. What was the crossing like into Poland? Oh, that took forever. We were on a night train from

West Berlin. And so, of course, first we had to cross into East Germany. That wasn't a problem.

You know, it was Jing, Jing, Jing, Jing, with everybody's passports crossing from east germany into

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