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On the 9th of August, Krzysztof Wantoch-Rekowski - a longtime activist of the Polish Anarchist Federation and Food Not Bombs from Poznan - was detained by the police. He has been put into jail for six weeks for...destroying his identity card (article 276 of the Penal Code)

This interview was published in 31st issue of "Abolishing the Borders from Below" (2008), anarchist journal from Eastern Europe.1. ABB: What do you think Rozbrat means for the anarchist movement from Poland and from Poznan?D.: Actually, when you think about anarchist movement in Poznan, you think exactly about Rozbrat, as a place that gathers free-thinking and anarchist milieus. For now it is quite difficult to imagine the anarchist movement without Rozbrat. Most of the activists from - what you call today - the anarchist movement in Poland became active when Rozbrat already existed. It means that they somehow had to refer to this active centre in Poznan. During those years hundreds of anarchist meetings, discussions and congresses took place here. There are not many anarchists in Poland who haven't had any relation to this place. I think it wouldn't be an exaggeration if I said that the anarchist milieu that is active around Rozbrat is today the oldest continuously active and the most diverse milieu in Poland. For the anarchist movement in Poland, relatively young and undermined by plagues of evanescence, such experience is a value itself.

During a workshop on solidarity economics at the WoGan Decriminalizing Resistance conference last weekend (November 12th-13th) I met Krzysztof Krol, a member of the Anarchist Federation of Poland who resides at the Rozbrat Collective in the Polish city of Poznan. Of the many participators in that particular workshop only the two non-U.S. presenters seemed to have practical solutions for working class people. While Americans talked of seed exchanges, alternative currencies, and green investment schemes Krol told of his groups foray into radical labor organizing and a presenter from Argentina's MST talked about a community center built by the community itself geared around food production and education.As the debate over the validity of alternative currencies roared on past the workshop's scheduled time I pulled the labor-minded Krzysztof aside to get a one-on-one interview.