So somehow, as I said, in September 1966 my son and I returned from my stay in Giessen, West Germany. After such a long absence, I had to catch up with everything that had been happening, and not all of it was pleasant. But I will talk about that later.About a month after our arrival, I received a letter from the West German Association for Plant Management Research informing me that I had been elected as a corresponding member. At that time, rumors of unrest in Czechoslovakia were already beginning, but we didn’t pay much attention yet.At the end of 1966, I invited Professor von Boruchlovsky, the head of the department in Giessen that had hosted me, to visit our apartment and meet my co-workers. Around that time, our car — which felt new to us — started having problems. We discovered that the engine or the battery needed replacement. Since Volkswagen parts were not available through Polish dealers, I asked the professor to bring the necessary parts with him from Germany when he came. He did so in the spring of 1967, and the visit went very well. He was particularly impressed with the work of my colleagues and also visited our experimental fields near Hrelitz.In 1967, I attended the annual meeting of the European Commission for Agriculture in Rome, as well as the full FAO meeting in November as part of the Polish delegation. Around the same time, I was elected president of the Association for Plant Research.By then I belonged to a large number of scientific associations, many of them through subscriptions to their journals: the Polish Soil Science Association, the International Soil Science Association, the American Society of Agronomy, and others. I also held elected positions such as head of the agronomy section of the European Association for Potato Research and membership in the International Center of Fertilizers. Within Poland, I served as chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy and as a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, among many other roles.Up to that point we had received various state awards and medals. Helena received the Silver Medal for Merit in 1954. I was awarded the Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People’s Poland in 1955, the Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and later the Officer’s Cross. I also received the Badge of Merit for my contributions to the celebration of Poland’s thousandth anniversary as a state.In 1967, political changes began. Under strong Soviet pressure, hardliners took control in Poland. The attitude toward intellectuals and liberals worsened rapidly. Seeing this coming, I began gradually reducing my official responsibilities. I resigned from the Research Council for the Minister of Agriculture and from my position as deputy secretary of the Academy of Sciences. When my department became part of a new Potato Research Institute in Koszalin, I promoted a colleague to head it and stayed on only as research head of the potato management department. At the same time, I established a new institute for research on soil fertility and productivity at the Polish Academy of Sciences.Our son had started studying physics at Warsaw University in 1966. In 1967 and especially in 1968, student unrest grew stronger, and he took part in it. In 1968, following the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring, the situation in Poland deteriorated further. I received warnings that his involvement could cause problems for all of us.That same year, in March or April, I underwent a serious operation and had to stay in hospital for a long time due to a post-operative infection. While I was recovering, Helena kept telling me that the situation was getting worse and that we should leave Poland. It was an extremely difficult decision.We were promised visas, but when Helena went to the American Embassy, they already had a large dossier on our family. They even knew about our governess, whom we called “auntie.” Because she was elderly and not formally family, Helena explained that she would stay behind. The embassy arranged for us to collect the visas in Vienna, where Helena had also been invited to work as a consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency.In the end, we received exit permits for all three of us. We packed what we could, rented our house to the director of Pan Am in Poland, and arranged for someone to look after it. With the help of friends from the Academy of Sciences, including the vice president, we drove to the border in two cars in late September or October 1968. The presence of these high-ranking officials prevented a thorough search at the Polish border. We crossed East Germany, collected some belongings we had sent ahead in West Germany, and finally arrived in Vienna, tired but safe.We rented an apartment and began a new, uncertain chapter in our lives. I will continue with our time in Vienna next.