It was a marathon against intolerance and fear. For 12 hours, from Friday evening until Saturday dawn, the British rock group Uriah Heep and some 40 Polish bands played to raise money for the kids.
Although the oldest is only 3 years old, these eight children have created more controversy than most people will in their lifetimes-and all because they have AIDS.
It began when MONAR, a Polish acronym for youths against drug abuse, first tried to open houses for the youngsters in the village of Jozefow, but gave up after neighbors held sit-ins and protest vigils.
Next they tried Lodz, but were driven out when residents threatened legal action.
Finally, they went to Laski, a suburb of Warsaw, where two houses had been purchased for MONAR by the U.S.-Polish Joint Commission for Humanitarian Assistance. But angry neighbors shouted threats and assaulted the houses.
”They psychologically terrorized our people,” said Henryk Sztajner, a MONAR director. ”At night, they`d destroy whatever work was done during the day. If we lay some tiles, they`d pull up the tiles. Every day at 7 they`d break the windows.”
Laski residents spoke angrily of how they thought AIDS could spread: from stray cats, sewer systems, garbage. Leaflets on what scientists say causes the spread of AIDS-sexual contact or blood transfers-were thrown away.
When a team of French doctors came to assure people that the children wouldn`t be a danger, the doctors were jeered out of town.
”They went with theoretical knowledge into the real world,” said Krzysztof Cubruch, a MONAR official. ”It was boiling there in Laski.”
On July 28, about three weeks after fire broke out in one of the houses, MONAR gave up.
But many Poles were angered by the situation. Most of the children, some only a few months old, had been born to intravenous drug users. And on Friday and Saturday, tens of thousands of Poles came out to show their sympathy at the MONAR-sponsored concert in Warsaw`s largest stadium.
”It was a lack of tolerance-like the Dark Ages,” said Agnieska Bator, a 20-year-old clerk who attended the concert. ”We disgraced ourselves in the eyes of the world. Those children could move in with me. They could sleep in my bed; I wouldn`t mind at all.”
Poles rallied behind the event.
Krzysztof Krol, a parliamentary deputy, said state television is planning a series of public service ads about AIDS. ”I personally am supposed to participate,” he said. ”I have no idea how to promote condoms, but I`ll think of something.”
”I`ll help him,” said his wife, Elzbieta, a Catholic who doesn`t agree with her church`s stand against birth control devices. ”The reaction of the people in Laski was like a phobia-a panic, a blind fear.”
”People from the arts, science, sportsmen, the political elite are all behind us,” said Cubruch, the MONAR official. ”So many people of good will have gathered, it`s without precedent.”
Some 70,000 tickets had been sold by Friday night, said Marek Kotanski, head of MONAR.
”It`s the greatest concert in Europe in 20 years,” he said.
MONAR expected to raise about $300,000 for treatment and a new Warsaw home for the kids.
The crowd of mostly young people cheered when a message was read from President Lech Walesa. ”I am with you,” Walesa wrote.
Most Poles agree that their nation is sadly ignorant about AIDS.
Cubruch said the communist regime began a campaign in the 1980s, calling the disease a ”capitalist decadent illness” and warning people to use condoms. But he said the effort stopped once the Communists lost power in 1989 and the Catholic Church gained influence.
”Education is the most important issue. What happened in Laski should be looked at by sociologists-not those who study ethics,” he said. ”Everything depends on the level of knowledge we give society.”
The fact that the children are ”so little is why they need so much warmth,” said Cubruch. ”There`s nothing-nothing-you could accuse them of personally.”
Cubruch said MONAR hoped it would never again have to convince people to reach out to people who are HIV positive.
”We want to leave the stadium different,” he said. ”We`ll take a lot of light out of there, in the form of a smile. A smile we`ll share with the children of the world. A rainbow smile.”
