Uslyszcie moj krzyk

“Listen to the cry of an ordinary, gray man, of a native son who has always cherished freedom above anything else, even none than his own life.” Those were the farewell words Rysard Siwiec, a sixty-year old family man, recorded on his tape-recorder just before leaving for the Harvest Celebrations held at the Warsaw Stadium on September 8, 1968. He set fire to himself as a sign of protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact. An amateur cameraman who was standing in the crowd filmed the scene.