Since Netflix dramatized the story, podcasts and other content about the tragedy have drawn renewed attention.
More than 30 years on, many questions remain unanswered, prompting Polish Radio External Service to turn to Zadworny to reveal which mysteries he has managed to uncover.
Monika Piorun, Polish Radio External Service: An old seafarers’ proverb says, ‘A calm sea never made a skilled sailor.’ What lessons can we draw from Poland’s largest post-war maritime disaster - the sinking of the Jan Heweliusz ferry in 1993 - that you explored in your report?
Adam Zadworny: There are many lessons to be learned. In Poland, there is a special institution called the Maritime Chamber - a quasi-court, described by some lawyers as an inquisitorial tribunal.
The Chamber conducts its own investigations and issues rulings based on the collected evidence to determine the causes of maritime disasters.
I mention this because the Maritime Chambers - in Szczecin and Gdynia - are the authorities empowered to draw conclusions from such tragedies.
They can also issue recommendations to minimize the risk of similar incidents in the future.
In your book, you wrote that the Heweliusz sank twice - first in the Baltic, and then in a “sea of lies.” You based your work on, among other sources, prosecutor investigation documents. Why has this story spawned so many conspiracy theories?
Whenever information is withheld - especially by the state and its institutions, which from the outset did not disclose the ferry’s technical condition - it creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
In the name of higher goals - Polish national interest, or more specifically, protecting the Polish flag and the state-owned shipping company, Polish Ocean Lines, which owned the Heweliusz - information about years of neglect, accidents, and serious malfunctions (26 in total) was omitted. No other ship in Poland had so many documented incidents.
The Heweliusz case was handled by a government commission and a ministry committee within the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, the prosecutor’s office, the Maritime Chambers, and the State Labour Inspectorate.
According to the ministry committee, the only culprit was Hurricane Junior - a force of nature that, as we know, cannot be held accountable in court. Later rulings from the Maritime Chambers varied significantly.
Original photographs of the ferry 'Jan Śniadecki,' which recovered victims of the Heweliusz disaster on 14 January 1993, show the aftermath of the tragedy off the coast of the German island of Rügen, The ferry was en route from Świnoujście to Ystadt in Sweden when it encountered a storm exceeding force 12 on the Boufort scale (PAP/Jerzy Undro)
To what extent did the chaos in Poland in the early 1990s, just after the fall of communism, contribute to the sinking and to the concealment of the ship’s operational failures?
From the very beginning, journalists had to deal with chaos - especially informational. It was difficult even to establish how many people died.
In many ways, the Heweliusz became a metaphor for the state that existed at the time.
Three years had passed since the political transformation, yet there were still no agreements with neighboring countries for coordinating maritime rescue operations. This affected what happened on 14 January 1993.
Almost nothing worked as it should - the situation went as badly as imaginable. Moreover, the crew did not expect a hurricane. They relied on a weather forecast indicating winds of only force 6–7 on the Beaufort scale.
Haste was also a factor. Instead of taking the “winter route” along the German island of Rügen, which would have provided shelter from the wind, they chose a shorter path.
There was a delay, they were rushing, and the trucks on the lower deck were not properly secured.
Świnoujście, northwestern Poland – the ferry ‘Jan Heweliusz’ in an archival photo from June 1992, six months, seven months before it sank during the night of 13-14 January 1993 (photo: PAP/Jerzy Undro)
At one of your book events, you mentioned that the Heweliusz also had design flaws, and its superstructure was raised to accommodate more trucks, allowing the owner to earn more.
Sailors called it a “floating coffin.” One captain admitted the ship “wears a person out nervously,” referring to steering and stability issues.
Experts pointed out that the Heweliusz was meant to be a twin of the Mikołaj Kopernik ferry built three years earlier, but it was one deck taller. Captains explained that this caused stability problems.
During stronger winter winds, the ferry rolled heavily. It also had other technical problems, its Achilles’ heel being the improperly used anti-rolling system.
Some theories suggest the ferry ignored weather warnings. It might not have been equipped to face such a storm, and instead of departing at 9 p.m., the sailing was postponed to 11:30 p.m. The series hints that this delay was influenced by instructions from an embassy concerning VIP guests.
Three days before the planned voyage, the Heweliusz struck a quay in Ystad, Sweden, damaging its stern ramp, which remained leaky.
On 13 January 1993, a three-person repair team worked late into the evening but could not fix the leak.
The ferry left two and a half hours later than planned. The crew was rushing also because a VIP - a female director from the shipping company’s office - was on board, scheduled for a morning meeting with Swedish partners.
The tragedy that unfolded that night had no single cause - it was a combination of factors.
The Polish ferry 'Jan Heweliusz' was carrying trucks as well as freight train wagons at the time of disaster in 1993. Here is an archival image from the Polish Baltic Shipping Company fleet, showing a ship operating on the Świnoujście-Ystadt route (photo: PAP/Jerzy Undro)
The disaster gained international attention. A 1993 article in Germany’s Der Spiegel suggested many passengers on board were of Romani origin. Your report disproves this, showing no evidence supported that claim.
Just as the wreck has over the years become encrusted with algae and shellfish, the Heweliusz story has been layered with myths. One of the most persistent is the alleged number of victims exceeding official counts.
This theory stemmed from the fact that in the early 1990s, Romani migrants from Romania often traveled illegally to Sweden on Polish ferries from Świnoujście. There is ample evidence for this.
I spoke with border guards who confirmed that stowaways hid in train cars at the Świnoujście port, boarding ferries transporting trains to Scandinavia.
Swedish media covered this extensively in 1992, before the Heweliusz disaster.
After the sinking, German journalists speculated that more people were on board than officially reported. I believe this was impossible.
The ship capsized for around 40 minutes - any hidden passengers would have tried to save themselves, and their bodies would have been found. None were.
No one ever reached the train cars that fell from the upside-down ferry in the Baltic.
However, you discovered a group of Berlin students who did not board despite having tickets. Learning of the accident, they celebrated in their dormitory that fate had spared them.
It is one of the remarkable stories connected to this tragedy. Paradoxically, the weather saved them: while a hurricane approached from the south of the British Isles, northern Poland experienced snow and ice, delaying the students and preventing them from reaching the ferry.
The disaster involving the Polish ferry 'Jan Heweliusz' claimed 55 lives, and ten bodies have never been recovered. The ship was carrying trucks as well as freight train wagons (photo: PAP/Jerzy Undro)
Was the Heweliusz Poland’s Titanic?
It’s certainly a different story and scale - the Polish ferry was much smaller - but there are analogies. On the Titanic, the poorest passengers, with no space in lifeboats, drowned or froze. On the Polish ferry, passengers had no thermal survival suits, leaving them exposed to hypothermia.
Edward Kurpiel, the Heweliusz purser, told the Maritime Chamber in Szczecin - interviewed by international media - that when asked about passengers’ chances of survival, he answered in one word: “none.”
Every year in Świnoujście, northwestern Poland, the victims of the country's deadliest post-war maritime disaster are commemorate. The tragedy claimed 55 lives, including 35 passengers and 20 crew members. Photo from this year's ceremony on 14 January 2025 (PAP/Marcin Bielecki)
If the Heweliusz was a metaphor for Poland at the time - a country sailing from the storm of communism into the uncertain waters of freedom - do you think we’ve learned to navigate better since then? Or do we still carry the same burdens that once dragged us down?
In this respect, I’m optimistic. Disasters can still happen, but today the number of victims would likely be far lower. I truly believe emergency services could save most of the passengers.
We are now in the European Union, with agreements and better communication tools. In 1993, it was completely different.
Recalling Poland thirty years ago, I think of Lech Wałęsa’s New Year speech. Two weeks before the Heweliusz disaster, he said the country was “on a journey to a better world.”
One political commentator added that this journey was over a stormy sea of transformation. I think these words capture the spirit of that story.
A commemorative plague marking the 20th anniversary of the disaster in which 55 people died, bears an inscription quoting Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (photo: PAP/Marcin Bielecki)
Have you seen the Netflix series inspired by these events?
I watched the first two episodes at the pre-premiere in the Szczecin Philharmonic. The dramatization is impressive from the first scenes. It will be a hit.
Although the series is inspired by true events, its storytelling differs from the report: it includes invented scenes and dialogues, and characters are composites. Yet the film, and the depiction of Poland at that time, feels very real.
Adam Zadworny from Poland poses with his German-Polish Journalism Prize in the category press in Dresden, Germany, 08 June 2010. To his right is his original report exploring the mysteries of the Jan Heweliusz ferry disaster in the Baltic Sea. To his left - a poster for the Netflix series dramatizing the real-life events (OLIVER KILLIG/PAP/EPA)
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