Last night DH recounted experiences in Communist Poland for 1 1/2 hours and more details of his escape, interrogations, and so on.
He knows what tyranny is first hand, and Poland was not nearly as horrible as the USSR or some of the other Eastern Bloc. For his underground activities, he could easily have been sent to gulag, if he had been caught.
A dark time. Churchill and FDR's Dept of State dealt with the fate of the Polish people as if it was a piece on a chess board. The Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk was an important piece of that chess board.
Karol Józef Wojtyła and Solidarność changed all of that. Wojtyła became Pope Jon Paul II and Solidarność (Solidarity) raised a commoner, Lech Wałęsa, to world status. As you imply, the journey was not a smooth one.
I see the Hand of God in all of that.