Widow of Polish Leader Dies

Zofia Gomulka, widow of the former Polish Communist leader Wladyslaw Gomulka and a leading party activist in her own right, died Friday at the age of 84, official newspapers reported.

A death notice inserted by the Central Committee of the party in its own daily Trybuna Ludu described her as “the devoted comrade of the life, work and struggle of Wladyslaw Gomulka.”

Wladyslaw Gomulka was party leader briefly after World War II before being ousted by Stalinist opponents and again from 1956 until 1970, when he was toppled during worker unrest.

He died in 1982.

Mrs. Gomulka, who became a party member in 1920 and held official posts before and after the war, was jailed along with her husband in the early 1950s and described their period of political disgrace as “hell.”

She admitted, however, that her husband had made mistakes in his handling of the economy. “We made an error from the start by assuming that everyone deserves everything, that everybody must get an apartment, free education and free medical care while unemployment does not exist,” she said.