Abstract
In a political environment of national reconciliation and community, prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s first address to the Sejm declared that his government would not assume responsibility for the heritage of communism and would draw a thick line under the past. He wanted to limit the responsibility of his government to its own actions.1 The thick line (gruba kreska) soon came to stand for a policy of prosecuting the former authorities only for crimes that could be fully documented and were legally prosecuted at the time they were committed. Although such a meaning diverged from Mazowiecki’s original intention, Poland was a semi-democratic island among communist countries at that time, and the participation of communist ministers in his government made the sacking of civil servants impossible. Thus, the thick-line policy envisaged an abstention from purges in ministerial bureaucracy as well as in the secret services (Kozlowski, 1991:18–20).
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