“Four months before his death, he is considering euthanasia. He is given morphine for the pain.”

Ten months before his death, Jerzy Urban stops getting out of bed. He’s too weak.

Five months before his death, he is hospitalized. He has pneumonia.

Four months before his death, he was considering euthanasia. He is given morphine for the pain.

Three months before his death, he wants to sell the weekly “Nie”. They convince him to wait.

A month before his death, he demands not to be taken to the hospital anymore.

Two weeks before his death, he stops writing columns.

The day before his death, he wakes up for a moment. He sees Magda who has come to visit.

– Oh, daughter. – He’s falling asleep again.

He dies at four thirty on Monday, October 3, 2022, in the hospital in Pruszków.

He is eighty-nine years and three months old.

No one is well prepared for Urban’s death, although expected. The “Nie” editorial team has three days left to send the farewell issue to the printing house, but there are no texts for the editor-in-chief’s death. The family has no plan on how to inform journalists. Finally, after a few hours, the news is announced by the weekly “Nie” on Facebook. All media, even right-wing ones, accompany their information with a black and white mourning photo.

The first trivial news about the deceased turns into a river of analyses, opinions and comments, constantly fed with new tributaries. In the six days that separate Jerzy Urban’s death and his funeral, almost everyone has something to say about him.

Some: a red scoundrel, the great Manipulo, the Goebbels of martial law, a disgusting servant of the criminal regime, a follower of panwinism, a perverse grandfather, an eared corpse, a PRL scoundrel, a Soviet cacique, a communist collaborator, human shit, a spreader of hatred, a liar and a murderer.

The second: a national treasure, one of the brightest minds in Poland, a gentleman, a philanthropist, an icon of pop culture, a master of the sharp pen, a companion of hard drinking, the ruler of mass imagination, one of the architects of the changes of 1989.

Urban is also: Łysy (for his wife), Daddy (“No” for journalists), Jurek (for his daughter).

The New York Times, which devoted a long text to him, calls him a “fierce communist who became a hero of free speech.” He sums up: “the man Poles loved to hate.”

Urban himself indicated the burial place in one of the mocking YouTube videos. This is the Military Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw. You don’t have to ask anyone for permission. His parents are lying there.

Jarosław Kaczyński, president of Law and Justice, explains that the local government is responsible for the cemetery. Reminds:

– It’s worth watching who attends such funerals.

As a precaution, the Ministry of National Defense dissociates itself from the funeral and assures that the former government spokesman will not be buried according to the military ceremony.

This would rather please Urban, who in the 1950s went to hospital to avoid military service and respected only one soldier: General Wojciech Jaruzelski.

The wife, Małgorzata Daniszewska, maintains the face of a scandalist. In “No” he announces: “The bald man hit the calendar.”

At noon on October 11, an hour before the funeral, there is an atmosphere of expectation in the cemetery. Police cars and city guard vehicles are parked in front of the gate, journalists are preparing microphones and cameras. The deceased’s old friends are coming together.

Of the protesters, the first to appear is a man with a poster under his arm. The word “Goebbelsourbany” flashes – it’s hard to ignore that Goebbels is missing one “b”.

“They’re hiding a bandit here,” the newcomer explains to the woman who talks to him.

The group of protesters grows to a dozen or so people of retirement age. Their patriotic attitude is emphasized by rogatywka, leopard prints and emblems with a crowned eagle. They hold in front of them like shields photos of Grzegorz Przemyk and priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, for whose death Urban was blamed. There are also portraits of other people who died in the Polish People’s Republic in suspicious circumstances.

More experienced journalists come in at the last minute. There is already a large group of them. The “Super Express” reporter hums The Internationale under his breath.

The demonstrators perk up at the sight of the cameras.

– Do you know how much Urban stole? One hundred twenty million.

– And what did he do with them? – one of them asks. And then he furiously announces: – Transferred to Germany!

Piotr Gadzinowski, journalist and former SLD MP, says:

– I once accused him of having no vision for the development of “No”. He told me to look for it at his funeral. Well, here I am.

The ceremony is secular.

– Don’t believe anyone who tells you that I was converted on a bed of garbage – said Urban during our last meeting.

The mistress of ceremonies is Monika Sawicka from Łódź, Urban’s hometown. She offered her services herself and waived her fee. Of the two styles she wears at funerals, she chose the more theatrical one: a top hat and tails, a ruffle at the neck and several-centimeter high heels.

A group of photojournalists unabashedly bring their lenses to the faces of guests and family. They stand with their backs to the urn and take serial photos of each significant mourner.

Aleksander Kwaśniewski comes first, taking his place at the very front. He met Urban as a spokesman when they worked together for Mieczysław Rakowski’s government, and then they became close friends. This did not prevent Urban from attacking the first lady in “No” when Kwaśniewski became president.

The room fills up quickly. The guys who try to sneak in at the last minute are the worst at this.

Olga Lipińska, in her early eighties, stood in the aisle. Photojournalists are sure to spot her there. The director poses for photos for several minutes, then disappears quietly. Discretion is lost on ninety-six-year-old Marian Turski, who worked with Urban in the editorial office of “Polityka”. He arrived too late to take a seat. Next to him, Adam Michnik, seventy-six, is holding on to the back of a bench. The editor-in-chief of “Gazeta Wyborcza” was linked with Urban by invisible ties for a large part of his life, although in the 1980s they stood on opposite sides of the barricade. Monika Jaruzelska, the general’s daughter and the youngest in the group, stood to the side with flowers. Some reporters don’t recognize her.

Urban’s best friends are missing. They lie nearby, in the same cemetery: Daniel Passent for half a year, Mieczysław Rakowski for fourteen years.

The mistress of ceremonies spends twenty minutes talking about Urban’s life as if she had known him for years. Adam Grzesiak, his son-in-law and former oppositionist, wipes his eyes while listening to the memory. For the last two days, he and his wife Magda, the deceased’s daughter, have been helping to write this speech.

Waldemar Kuchanny, Urban’s deputy in “No”, also has a speech prepared. A bit mocking, a bit sad. He ends moved:

– When Dad left the editorial office, he used to say: “well, hello” – he recalls. Then he says goodbye to his boss for the last time: – Well, hello.

Aleksander Kwaśniewski speaks out at the last minute. He immediately connects with the room.

– Did Jerzy Urban lie as a spokesman? – he asks trickily. The mourners hold their breath for a moment. “It happened,” he admits after an impressive pause. And he immediately finds a clever comparison: – And Morawiecki?

The room bursts into laughter. There is even applause. Although Urban was considered a skillful propagandist, in the eyes of those present at the funeral, the incumbent prime minister outscored him in this art.

Philosopher Jan Hartman, former “Financial Times” correspondent Krzysztof Bobiński, former employee of the government press office and “Nie” readers also speak. The mistress of ceremonies ends before the ceremony turns into a political demonstration. This one is in full swing behind the doors. Małgorzata Daniszewska, Urban’s wife, takes part in it. She did not enter the funeral home. Unrecognized by anyone, she sits in a wheelchair, applauds and encourages the protesters herself:

– Down with communism!

The urn is now on its way to the grave. The hearse only has to travel about one hundred and fifty meters. The editor-in-chief of “Nie” will take a quite prestigious place at Powązki Cemetery in Tuje’s headquarters. His neighbor will be Zygmunt Szeliga, a journalist of “Polityka”. Nearby is also Eryk Lipiński, the founder of “Szpilki”, for which Urban wrote widely read columns for years.

Other friends are also buried around. Many of them were included in the Urban Alphabet. He shared columns with Jan Olszewski and Leszek Kołakowski in the weekly “Po Prostu”, with Ryszard Kapuściński and Zygmunt Kałużyński in “Polityka”, and with Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz in “Szpilki”. The first secretaries of the party are also nearby: Władysław Gomułka, who made Urban unemployed, and Wojciech Jaruzelski, who employed him as a spokesman.

As the ceremony participants leave the funeral home, photojournalists push aside a dozen or so protesters. The most serious confrontation occurs when a funeral attendant smears a red rose on the face of one of the anti-communists. The attack is immediately repelled.

– Leave this old man alone! Do you know where to put this rose?

The other party does not remain in debt.

– What are you saying to this woman!

– And did you see what she did? She beat an elderly man in the face with that rose and its thorns!

– This lady didn’t hit anyone with a rose, you have some imagination, sir.

– And there are red stars in your eyes!

Right in front of the ballot box walks unrecognized Lieutenant Colonel Adam Smoleński, a former Security Service officer – he has been at odds with Urban since the late 1980s, before they were friends.

Meanwhile, journalists put microphones under the noses of significant mourners. The question to Adam Michnik is intended to reveal their hidden intimacy.

– Why did you come to the funeral?

Michnik doesn’t have to look for excuses:

– Because Jerzy Urban died.

Urban. Biography Znak Publishing House/ Press materials