Perła Kacman was born in 1948 in Dzierżoniów, in the so-called Recovered Territories, where her parents – father Abram Kacman, mother Chana – ended up after being evacuated from the USSR (they were given accommodation in Bielawa). Mother Perła came from a wealthy Hasidic family living in the town of Zarudnia near Chełm. Her father came from a poorer background. Before the war, they were members of the Communist Party of Poland and Western Ukraine. Mother Perła served a four-year prison sentence in the Lublin fortress for involvement in the activities of the outlawed communist movement. In the last years before the war, they lived in Warsaw, where their son Walisz was born. September 1939 found them near Chełm. They crossed the Bug River and escaped to Ukraine, where they found employment in a collective farm. After the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in June 1941, the father was drafted into the trudarmy (labor battalions), and his unit evacuated the aircraft factory to the East, near Kuibyshev. Chana and Walisz escaped further, to Kazakhstan. At the turn of 1943/1944, Chana found Abram through the Red Cross delegation in Moscow and was given the opportunity to join him. They returned to Poland in 1945. In Lower Silesia, Abram became involved in establishing ORT knitting cooperatives. In 1950, the family moved to Warsaw, and Abram received a job at the Electron Measuring Instruments Manufacturing Plant. In 1964, he retired. Perła Kacman attended Stefan Batory High School and then began studies at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw. She maintained ties with the "commando" community and attended meetings of Adam Michnik's Club of Seekers of Contradictions. In 1968, he is in his third year of studies and participates in a rally on March 8 (he has one of the copies of the resolution that is to be read at the rally). The third year of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics is suspended by the authorities and all its students are to undergo the procedure of readmission to studies. When rumors spread about preventive arrests before May 1, 1968, he leaves for Mikołajki, from where, however, after a few days, he returns to Warsaw to appear for a meeting with Professor Jerzy Pniewski. The professor is on the committee reinstating students of the faculty and wants to learn from the student herself why the authorities oppose reinstating Kacman. Having learned that it is probably about her contacts with the "commandos", he states that this cannot be a reason for her to be crossed out and defends her by threatening to dismiss her from the position of professor at the University of Warsaw. Kacman is reinstated in her rights as a student. Despite pressure from her parents, Perła does not want to take advantage of the opportunity to emigrate: "I was not particularly sensitive to anti-Semitism, because I was used to it. I had encountered it since I was a child." She calls the Student March "the first Solidarity", characterizing it as an experience that strengthened ties with Poland and also drew the attention of some Polish intelligentsia to Polish-Jewish relations. "The whole March, for me, was indecency fighting with decency (...). In my opinion, it is a secondary matter who is the victim of this indecency," she emphasizes. Perła Kacman is a professor of physics, works at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Perła Kacman died in February 2024. INTERVIEWEE'S NAME: Perła Kacman INTERVIEWED BY: Józef Markiewicz RECORDING: Józef Markiewicz DATE OF RECORDING: August 23, 2017 COPYRIGHT TO THE RECORDING: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Read more about the history of Perła Kacman's family: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/miejscowosci... Discover the POLIN Museum's oral history collection: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/historia-mow... Subscribe to our channel: / @historiamowionapolin Watch the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews channels: POLIN (announcements and reports from events at the Museum): / mhzp2013 Virtual Shtetl (history and culture of Polish Jews): / virtualshtetl Polish Righteous (stories of help provided to Jews during the Holocaust): / polscysprawiedliwi Contact to share the interview: [email protected] #historiapowiedziona #muzeumpolin #march68