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.
DH was to be inducted into the military, officers’ training, and he didn’t object to being in military as it was a family tradition but he did not want to serve under Communist rule. He knew martial law was coming. There had already been shootings of civilians - he saw the bloodstains at the train platform, not sure which city, and so he got out as aoon as he could scheme it. Not easy. Two relatives of his worked in the Gdansk shipyard and knew quite a bit about what happened. Lech Walesa (how do you do the diacritical marks/PL letters??) was “turned” in jail, from what DH says. Threatened/etc.
But finally the wall fell, and the USSR fell.
And giving Poland to the USSR was a horrible crime.