Iwona Goriaczko
1958 – 2025
From CIRA de Marseille
February 2026
Her accent, her laugh…
Iwona was born on August 10, 1958, in Wieruszow, Poland. She lived with her parents and two brothers in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau, a German city until 1945). In 1978, she left Poland and its Red Star dictatorship to join Jean-Luc, her lover, in Albi, France. They married that same year, and she obtained French citizenship. They then left Albi and settled in Toulouse.
Natacha was born in 1982 and Bruno in 1984. In 1987, Iwona and Jean-Luc divorced. It would be Iwona’s only marriage, but not her last romantic adventure.
Arriving from Poland with virtually no knowledge of French, she quickly progressed and mastered the language. However, she always had some difficulty with the “le” and “la.” For example, instead of saying “vais à Bagatelle” (a neighborhood in Toulouse), she would say, “je vais à la Bagatelle.”
In 1983, after three years of study, she obtained her diploma in psychiatric nursing, the only profession she would ever practice, first in Toulouse at the Marchand Hospital, then in Ariège from 2003 onwards, in Lavelanet and at the CMP children’s hospital in Pamiers. She criticized salaried work and the institution but loved her job.
In the late 1980s, following Jean-Luc’s imprisonment for various robberies, she met members of Trans-muraille Express (an anti-prison radio program on Toulouse’s Canal-Sud radio station) who, along with others, ran a social history archive center called Cras.
From the early 1990s, she participated in the activities of this association and quickly became an important active member. Iwona also participated in various legal and semi-clandestine solidarity activities: “An anarchist at heart, I try to apply this in my daily life.”
Upon her arrival in Ariège, she joined a network supporting the Zapatistas (Mexico) within the Chiapas Committee.
Iwona was a manual worker with a keen intelligence and a strong sense of community. As part of the Cras, she carried out or contributed to numerous projects:
• photos (Iwona had a talent for photography, especially black and white, which she developed herself; she shared her work with the association);
• photo montages;
• collages;
• calendars;
• photos and posters for the books Golfech, Mil, Gari;
• digitization of the association’s poster collection;
• association accounting, posters for evening events;
• major renovation of the premises;
• and, of course, she was a member of Céphalée, the association’s board of directors.
Iwona, with her slight accent reminiscent of her origins, her laughter, her warm presence and attentiveness to others, was an essential figure for us. Our relationship was not only based on activism, but also on the friendship and affection that bound us all together. We loved you and we still love you! Iwona, we will miss you…
“Happiness is not much, it’s just sorrow resting. So we mustn’t wake it up.”
– Lyrics from the song Le bonheur by Léo Ferré, which Iwona loved.
Toulouse, August 25, 2025
For Cras, La Céphalée