The actor had effectively thumbed his nose at the SB. A secret police document recorded: \u201cFronczewski\u2019s arrogance and aggression, and his dissemination of false information about his conversations with Lieutenant Grabowski, offer little prospect of success in further operational discussions within the area of activity of interest to us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not Everyone Could Say No<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The 1980s, however, were already very different from the immediate postwar years. In his engrossing and beautifully written book Filmowcy w matni bezpieki<\/em> (Filmmakers in the Secret Police\u2019s Trap<\/em>), journalist and historian Dr. Filip Ga\u0144czak gives a detailed account of the distinguished cinematographer Jerzy Lipman, a leading figure in the Polish school of cinematography.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1945, the Office of Security, or UB, arrested the 23-year-old lieutenant in the \u201cPeople\u2019s<\/a>\u201d Polish Army. A court sentenced him to death for desertion and armed robbery, but an act of clemency commuted the sentence to 10 years in prison. He left prison 3 years later, at the price of signing a \u201cpact with the devil,\u201d as Ga\u0144czak puts it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a secret police informant,<\/strong> Lipman spent a period diligently reporting on his acquaintances. He singled out their \u201creactionary\u201d views and hostility toward the \u201cpeople\u2019s\u201d authorities, while also supplying plenty of information about their private lives. After several years, however, he began avoiding contact, and in 1955 the security apparatus removed him from its active network of informants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cinematographer behind such masterpieces as Andrzej Munk\u2019s Bad Luck<\/em> and Roman Pola\u0144ski\u2019s Knife in the Water<\/em> soon became a target of the Security Service himself. Among those reporting on him was an informant using the codename \u201cStefania\u201d: director Tadeusz Chmielewski<\/strong>, whose films included the celebrated comedy How I Unleashed World War II<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1963, Lipman once again agreed to act as a secret collaborator for the security apparatus<\/strong>, but soon began avoiding meetings with SB officers. In 1969, he failed to return to Poland from a trip abroad, a decision connected to the antisemitic campaign unleashed in communist Poland<\/a> in 1967\u20131968. He died in London in 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SB maintained a fairly dense network of informants in the film community. The extensive documentation concerning the marriage of director Janusz Morgenstern and his wife, Krystyna, offers evidence of its reach. The material that informants produced about El\u017cbieta Czy\u017cewska, a star of Polish cinema in the 1960s, is even more substantial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The political police eagerly recorded every detail of people\u2019s private lives, including gossip. Filip Ga\u0144czak\u2019s book is full of the codenames that appear in the extensive SB files on the actress, which run to several hundred pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among them is \u201cLiterat,\u201d meaning \u201cMan of Letters\u201d: perhaps the best-known film critic in communist Poland, who remained prominent long after the regime\u2019s demise. Zygmunt Ka\u0142u\u017cy\u0144ski wrote distinctly acerbic reports about El\u017cbieta Czy\u017cewska<\/strong>, despite being a close acquaintance of hers. The secret police took particular interest in Czy\u017cewska\u2019s relationship with David Halberstam, the Warsaw correspondent for The New York Times<\/em>. The couple married in 1965.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authorities soon revoked the journalist\u2019s accreditation because his articles criticized Poland\u2019s rulers. Czy\u017cewska also left the country some time later, but returned to play one of the leading roles in Andrzej Wajda\u2019s Everything for Sale<\/em> (1969). During the Solidarity movement\u2019s surge, she visited Poland again and appeared in several films. She died in New York in 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 1970s<\/strong>\u2014the \u201cEdwardian decade,\u201d named after communist leader Edward Gierek\u2014brought a relative easing of the Security Service\u2019s infiltration of the film community. Officers continued collecting material, however, including through listening devices in hotel rooms. One report, for example, recorded that a very famous actor and his casual partner, a woman named Ma\u0142gosia, \u201cwent to bed and had sexual intercourse\u201d in a hotel in Bydgoszcz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The SB paid particular attention to filmmakers\u2019 connections with the democratic opposition emerging in the mid-1970s. Actors who supported the Workers\u2019 Defense Committee, or KOR, with varying degrees of involvement came within the secret police\u2019s operational reach.<\/strong> KOR formed after the workers\u2019 protests in Radom and Ursus in June 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authorities placed actor Andrzej Seweryn, a KOR supporter, under surveillance. Perhaps the heaviest price fell on Halina Miko\u0142ajska, an actress who joined KOR in September 1976<\/strong>, risking her entire professional career. Known for her work in theater and televised theater productions, as well as her roles in films by directors including Krzysztof Zanussi\u2014Family Life<\/em>, Quarterly Balance<\/em>, and Camouflage<\/em>\u2014she suddenly disappeared from both television and cinema screens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Surveillance was only part of what she faced. She also endured a campaign of intimidation that must have had the SB behind it.<\/strong> Her husband, the writer Marian Brandys, recorded the incidents in his diary: \u201cSomeone damaged all 4 locks on Halina\u2019s car.\u201d \u201cThey partly cut through the wires in the car\u2019s ignition system.\u201d \u201cSomeone planted a bottle in the car containing something so appallingly foul-smelling that we all nearly suffocated.\u201d \u201cSomeone stuffed some filth into all the door locks, so we can\u2019t get a key in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harassers also targeted the actress with abusive telephone calls and letters. One day, people claiming to be workers from Ursus forced their way into Miko\u0142ajska and Brandys\u2019s apartment. In reality, the SB had sent them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Miko\u0142ajska attempted suicide after the incident.<\/strong> \u201cThe next day, when we finally managed to bring her around, she desperately resisted coming back to life. She shouted that she had had to do it because she could no longer live amid this all-encompassing lie. She was in a state of acute shock,\u201d Marian Brandys wrote. The authorities interned the actress during martial law. She died shortly after the elections of June 4, 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, a grotesque twist: the Security Service acquired a film unit of its own. It is worth recalling that, in communist Poland, state-run creative and production groups headed by established filmmakers handled film production<\/a><\/strong>. These included \u201cIluzjon,\u201d \u201cKadr,\u201d \u201cRytm,\u201d \u201cTor,\u201d \u201cX,\u201d \u201cPryzmat,\u201d \u201cProfil,\u201d and \u201cZodiak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ministry of Internal Affairs likewise decided to establish its own departmental film unit, \u201cSektor.\u201d It adopted the name in 1974. Its \u201ceducational\u201d and \u201ctraining\u201d films catered to ministry employees and students at police schools in Legionowo and Szczytno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its output included such works as Szyki i ugrupowania MO \u2013 \u0107wiczenia ZOMO<\/em> (Citizens\u2019 Militia Formations and Deployments: ZOMO Riot Police Exercises<\/em>, 1979), Imieniem Feliksa Dzier\u017cy\u0144skiego<\/em> (In the Name of Felix Dzerzhinsky<\/em>, 1981), and Wysoko trzymajcie sztandar<\/em> (Hold the Banner High<\/em>, 1983). It also produced Obs\u0142uga codzienna samochodu Fiat 125p<\/em> (Daily Maintenance of the Fiat 125p<\/em>, 1975).<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\nCitizens\u2019](\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Polish_cinema_1-1024x576.jpg\")
Filmmakers Under Communism: The Informant Becomes a Target<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Secret Police Peered Into Stars\u2019 Bedrooms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Zygmunt](\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Polish_cinema_2-1024x576.jpg\")
Polish Cinema Under Surveillance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The High Price of Dissent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Secret Police Began Making Their Own Films<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From Fronczewski to Zacharski<\/h2>\n\n\n\n