Commemorative plaque marking the solidarity between Szczecin and Csepel in 1956

The stamp bearing the inscription “Szczecin-Csepel” shown on the plaque—which depicts two workers’ hands clasped together—also symbolically expressed support for the workers of Csepel. On November 1, 1956, students at the Szczecin University of Technology formed a guard of honor and raised the Polish and Hungarian flags. In the end, however, the northwestern Polish coastal port city did not become known for this, but rather for the fact that on the night of December 10, 1956, several thousand people attacked nearby police stations, the downtown police headquarters, the Central Prison, and the Soviet consulate building. The latter was seized and ransacked. Consulate staff took refuge in the armored basement. The demonstrators protested the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, the Soviet occupation of Hungary, and the abduction of Imre Nagy. State security and the police identified several participants. Show trials were held: thirty-two people were convicted, many saw their careers derailed, and even more were placed under police surveillance.

The building that formerly housed the Soviet consulate now serves as the Szczecin branch of the Institute of National Remembrance. Since 2011, a commemorative plaque on the fence has commemorated the events that took place here in December 1956.

In the fall of 1956, as a sign of solidarity with those fighting in the Hungarian Revolution, the people of Szczecin collected donations and money, which they used to purchase large quantities of medicine and food for the Hungarians through the Polish Red Cross. The citizens of Szczecin, risking their own future well-being, openly condemned the Soviet Union’s bloody military intervention in Hungary. On the evening of December 10, 1956, they organized a demonstration in front of the Soviet consulate building at 14 Piotr Skarga Street. That night, they stormed and occupied the building, for which many of the participants were later harassed and punished by the communist regime for many years.

Initiators of the plaque’s installation: the City of Szczecin; Hungarian Cultural Institute, Warsaw; Institute of National Remembrance, Szczecin