Czech politicians on the death of Bronislaw Geremek

Several former Czech dissidents and politicians expressed their sympathies over the death of Poland’s Bronislaw Geremek, an anticommunist dissident and one of the founders of the Solidarity movement, who died in a car crash on Sunday. Former Czech President Václav Havel said that “Geremek’s death is not only a loss for Poland, but for all of us who strive for a free and decent world”. Former Czech dissident and later the first post-communist foreign minister of Czechoslovakia Jiří Dienstbier said that Mr Geremek was “a great personality who understood very well what needed to be done to rid Poland of various burdens of its nationalist past and to become a prominent and active member of the European family”. Czech European Affairs Minister Alexander Vondra said he was profoundly shaken by Mr Geremek’s death and that it was a great loss for Europe.