.:To Break Free of Death’s Grip in the Land of Smiles: Part II:.

 I keep my word and present you

the second part of the interview with

Michał Pauli.

Here you can read the original PL text.

Enjoy :]

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Translation: Krystian Iwaniuk

Original: Kinga Matałowska

"If the guards had known this, I would have been in a helluva trouble."

- How did you manage to break free?

It was a long-lasting process. After my third fruitless appeal I hit on an idea to write to influential, significant people in Poland to ask them for support. I discussed this through with our embassy, but they told me straight that they can’t do a thing without a permission from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MSZ).

- So what is left in such a situation? Wait for a miracle to come?

I suppose that in such terms my amnesty should be considered. Although I had to help this miracle to come by writing another letters. First what I had done was writing letters to MSZ, Radosław Sikorski [Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs] and several other significant politicians, who left my letters unanswered.

            The breakthrough happened when my mom and I had written two letters asking to support my amnesty to Lech Wałęsa. And he signed it. Other sympathetic people who signed it were Aleksander Kwaśniewski and – to my surprise – Lech Kaczyński. However, both were spurred to signed it by their wives, to whom I have addressed the letters counting on female empathy. When we collected the signatures Polish ambassador handed them personally to a royal secretary.

 Pauli's painting titled "Pu Chai"

- What did you feel when after those years of imprisonment you were free and you could live a normal life outside the prison walls?

World changes. I spent years in a place, which technologically reminded the Stone Age period: no electronics, no communication other than mail, no computers or phones – that’s one thing. The other is that life in prison deprives you of humanity and ability to live in a civilised world. You waste there time on obtaining  stuff which will allow you to survive, you’re not doing anything developing. When you leave prison you are like a child – everything makes you happy and frightens you at the same time.

            Already on a plane to Poland I had a pretty funny situation. In those big Boeings you have a small telly and a joystick to control it, so I grasped it and started to play with it. At one point a cable pulled out, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I called a stewardess and asked her how to put the whole thing in. She looked at me as if I was an idiot, pull the cable towards herself and it all just hid. It’s a kind of silly thing, but life is based on such silly things, and the lack of some abilities may simply terrify you.

            Well, after returning to Poland seeing the technological development was really surprising. And all those traffic jams. These are the things which you don’t notice so much on daily basis, but when you come back from such a place like a Thai prison they simply astound you.

Giving food at a prison square

- You are a visiual artist. Did you use your talent behind the bars?

In prison I made sketches which illustrate my book. I drew them with a pen on obtained scraps of paper. If the guards had known this I would have been in a helluva trouble. We smuggled them so that they could see the light of a day. Such sketches are the only documentation from those prisons – taking pictures is forbidden. There is no gear to take them there, anyway.

­- In spite of all what you have experienced, would you say that you have gained anything from it?

I think so. „What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” – I am a living proof of truthfulness of this maxim. What I’ve experienced changed my world view, and convinced me that I can subconsciously have an impact on reality. I was in a hopeless situation. I was just a grain of sand being  poured from one bag to another. Back then, every single day I imagined that I’m coming back home.

            Also I have discovered a thing which people call "the will to survive". Einstein said once that everybody says that something cannot be done until there comes an individual, unaware that it cannot be done, and actually does it. That's how it was in my case.

            Things I’m saying right now are wisdom, which we learn in extreme situations. You know, people break down because of various things: lack of money, unemployment… I’m happy just because of the fact that I am here and can live another day. Of course I care about my own living standards, to keep my ass warm. But I can always say: ‘OK! It didn’t work out, but I can go somewhere else and find a job there.’ It can’t be helped, it may be hard, but I will live another given day. The day which wouldn’t have to come.

           

SkyTrain station

- Please tell us about paintings which you have here.

It’s a series of “postcards,” which  is interrelated with my book. 12 x śmierć. Opowieść z Krainy Uśmiechu [12 x Death. A Story From the Land of Smile] is about my prison vicissitudes, and the paintings recall my positive memories from Thailand, which I have a lot. Look, you can see in them a SkyTrain station, a little girl, monks, tuk-tuk, which is a symbol of Bangkok’s streets. I wanted those paintings to be different from the story, which is in detail told in this book. I’ve described there the dark side of the Land of Smile. In the paintings I show its smile, which I  remember so vividly.

- Have you noticed any changes in your sensitivity to art, colours, understanding of   space after coming back to Poland?

I think that it remained unchanged because it’s a thing which one either has or hasn’t got. My technique has changed for sure. However, with painting is like with riding a bike. If you pass a certain stage, you’re experienced in it, your technique may become blunt for a moment, but it all comes back after a while. For sure I have lost multitude of time, which now I have to make up.

- How did your book come to being?

I returned to Poland in 2009. My friends were encouraging me to write down or tell someone all what happened to me. I’ve written this book to commemorate all those who were left there. I started writing in February and finished it in August. I was writing really fast because I didn’t have to make anything up by the sweat of my brow – I just focused on relating to the facts, enclosing the whole content in a narrative form. It was a kind of a katharsis to me.

Front cover of Pauli's book

- Have you written anything before?

I'm a visual artist. My Polish teachers would be really astonished if they knew that I’ve written a book.

- What are your plans for future?

I would like my book to become a warning for those, who may by accident get into similar troubles, which I have experienced. I really want to help, in any way, those who already got into them.
            I will get back to painting that’s for sure. Another theme which I will work on will be Cambodia’s landscapes. I also would like to paint a series of “postcards” from Angkor – it’s a city founded by the Khmer civilization - amazing place! I was really impressed by tress there, which were as if taken from Beksiński’s paintings, as well as architecture resembling the Aztec pyramids surrounded by a jungle. I’ve been there years ago, but it still is in my head.
            I’m also thinking about making a painting reportage about Bangkok. I have a lot of photos, which I use to remember myself those real-world elements and transfer it onto canvas. I will put them on my website (www.michalpauli.pl).