46 MARCH 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Then it was time to lower the flag. A Polish military band played the national anthems of the two countries. U.S. Marines folded the American banner with painstaking care while a shivering crowd stood at attention and tears welled in more than one pair of eyes. The consul general handed the flag to the mayor, who said it would have a place of honor in the city museum, where an exhibit of grainy black and white photos portray the bloody Poznan riots of 1956, when Poles filled the city’s streets and hundreds died demanding “bread and work.” With the presentation of the flag, the consulate and USIS closed, but the official American presence in the city will not totally fade away. A “consular agency” will be established in the person of Ms. Dziuba, who will continue to assist USIS, as well as the State and Commerce departments. The American library will stay, too, housed in a new home in the central library of Adam Mickiewicz University, one of Poland’s best. USIS and the consulate opened in 1959, in the wake of those 1956 riots that were one of the first signs of resistance to the unwanted communist system imposed on Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, as the region was then called. For the next three decades, the USIS staff did what USIS posts do everywhere, though with the added complication of authorities who regarded Americans as a hostile element to be watched closely. During crisis periods, like the martial law years of the early 1980s, Polish citizens could deal with the Americans only at their own peril—and they chose to do so. In 1963, the night John F. Kennedy died, many gathered with lit candles outside the consulate gates to show their solidarity. Some of the Poles who participated in today’s ceremony found it ironic that the Americans, who shared the hard times, are leaving now that democracy and capitalism are taking root in Poland. They’ve learned about America’s budget woes and realize that large budgets are made up of small bits (closing this USIS post saves about $200,000 per year). But many clearly felt saddened and diminished by the decision, nonetheless. One of Poland’s first post-communist prime ministers was Hanna Suchocka, who had been chosen by USIS Poznan to be an international visitor (IV) years earlier when she was an unknown member of the Poznan University law department. Other Poznan IV selections are currently serving as members of Parliament, government ministers, high court judges, members of the National Broadcast Council, university rectors, and directors of radio and television stations. One alumnus is head of the National Bar Association, and another has just published an encyclopedia of American film. Field posts have Marine Guards Cpl. Demetrius A. Vance (left) and Sgt. Robert M. Guider lower the flag at the closing of USIS Poznan. Ambassador and Mrs. Rey and Consul General Weber look on. At the USIS Poznan closing ceremony on Dec. 1, 1995, from left, Ambassador Nicolas Rey, Mrs. Louisa Rey, and Urszula Dziuba, who would become the consular agent, listen to Poznan Consul General Janet Weber. At right front is Dr. Wlodzimierz Lecki, the governor of Wielkopolska from 1990 to 1997; the late Wojciech Szczesny Kaczmarek, mayor of Poznan from 1990 to 1998; and Poznan University Professor Jadwiga Rotnicka, who was the president of Poznan City Council from 1991 to 1998. ROMUALD SWIATKOWSKI/GLOS WIELKOPOLSKI ROMUALD SWIATKOWSKI/GLOS WIELKOPOLSKI
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