Irena Grudzinska Gross

There are very few people whose death can mark the end of an era. Karol Modzelewski was one of them. A historian and founding member of the Polish trade union Solidarity, Modzelewski died on April 28 in a Warsaw hospital. Sadly, he leaves behind a country in the grips of a populist government whose accession to power might have been averted if his own earlier warnings had been heeded.