My Polish Spring

‘My Polish Spring’ is the memoir of Heather Campbell, who lived and worked in post-war communist Poland with her scientist husband, Ian. Ian was raised in a family with communist ideals in the 1930s, their political outlook formed by the suffering of the First World War, the economic mayhem of the Great Depression, and the belief that communism would be the most effective bulwark against the rise of Nazism and Far Right politics.


Heather herself came from a privileged background, but developed the same political stance as her future husband as a result of her work in factories during the Second World War.


After their marriage in 1950, Heather and Ian felt that they should commit to their political beliefs by moving to a communist country, where they would take part in the building of an egalitarian socialist state.


Moving to Poland in 1951, Ian and Heather worked at the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Institute of Oncology in Warsaw.


‘My Polish Spring’ relates the couple’s experiences, their increasing disillusionment with the injustices perpetrated by a Stalinist state, and their admiration for the courage of the Polish people, before their eventual return to England in 1959.