Just reading through few notebooks I dug out of my old desk when I was in Poland last time, because of Bar Mleczny - I am going back to years before ‘89. ‘Civil defence’ lessons were based around preparing students in highschool to all potential military emergencies. I was 15 back then and I learned about (quoting titles of my lessons):
L.5: Classical (i.e. conventional) weapons (home work: ‘Name types of classical weapons and ways of its usage’)
L6. Atomic weapons and its effects
L7. Chemical weapons
L8. Biologic weapons (home work: ‘Describe external effects of usage of chemical weapons’ i.e. fog of unknown origin; sudden appearance of large amount of insects…)
Only around lesson 20 did we learn about first aid…
The very fact that I had to learn this stuff at school gives me shivers. No wonder I tend to sit by the entrance to the tube…I feel slightly brain washed. Wonder why?
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This made me think of a once classified pamphlet http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/main.htm that my Grandad handed down to us from when he was a council leader back in the 70s. The article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_and_Survive tells us how public pressure led to the publication of this pamphlet and some videos eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_DfmRt8pgU in 1980. This month the recorded message to go over the radio has been released too see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7648042.stm.
I’m very grateful to have lived my life in over here after 1980, where we knew that the cold war was well below its height and we could enjoy satirising the protect and survive campaign. Did many Polish or other Eastern European people resort to comedy and other forms of art to get over their brain-washing?
Yes, art was a good way of expression – comedy most definitely. Sarcasm. But also huge amount of literature full of double-meanings. We Polish tend to like to live under oppression…