🧱 First Fragments of Memory: Life Behind the Wall and the Polish "Third World" I was born in Warsaw as an only child. My mother was a geographer specializing in international relations, and my father was a nuclear chemist at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Świerk. I was incredibly fortunate, as they were both brilliant, loving, and deeply patriotic people. However, for the first few years of my life, my parents were separated. I lived with my mother in East Berlin (the capital of the GDR), while my father worked in West Berlin. The borders were closed, and we couldn't visit each other. My earliest memories are of Berlin. As far back as I can remember, it was my city—the places I strongly identified with as a child. I attended first and second grade on Fischerinsel, and then moved to a school on Andreasstraße, close to the city center. My mother worked at the Polish Institute of Culture, so she made sure I attended a Polish school twice a week. But it was the East German public school that shaped me the most. I remember the sheer exoticism of that system and its heavy propaganda machinery. What did I do during those mandatory 30-minute morning assemblies that started every day at 7:30 AM? I simply slept in. And when I was already at school and just wanted to get home faster, I would ostentatiously wait on a bench, far away from the hustle of the assembly, in my own independent little world. The sheer artificiality and pomposity of the Young Pioneer celebrations amused me. I didn't join the Pioneers, and I didn't take part in party ceremonies. I felt like a rebel. The school frequently complained to the embassy to get me or my mother in line, but fortunately, my nonconformity was tolerated without any harsh reprisals. It was a fascinating period of German duality. As students, we were encouraged to snitch on and spy on our own parents—checking, for example, if they were watching banned Western television. That was when the image of two parallel worlds formed in my mind. One was the forbidden world where my father worked—a colorful world of freedom. The other was the drab but optimistic, emerging world of a new Germany.

Dear qLOGOS participants, Today marks the 4th anniversary of qLOGOS. It is an important date and an important moment, because it shows both the determination and the consistency of what we do. A project that has lasted four years — years that were hard and full of change at the same time — will last the next 40, and 400, and beyond. This is not a finished project or the rigid frame of a company. It is a process. It is all of us, written into other processes that are changing this world, so that it becomes a better one. Let us wish one another all the best, and a continued great adventure: money, growth, and friendship in open communication. Piotr www.qlogos.io www.qverse.me www.teoriaq.com [email protected]