Tim Walz has been called out several times over the accuracy of his claims, most recently about his alleged presence in communist China during the Tiananmen demonstrations of June 1989. During the October 1 Vice Presidential debate, “Knucklehead” Tim walked back his earlier claims to being an eyewitness to history, admitting he showed up in Hong Kong in August 1989 (which was then still an independent British colony, a decade away from communist takeover). That was two months after “Tank Man” (the brave Chinese who blocked the roll of a PLA tank) made his stand.

There are dates that everybody remembers where they were, like November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was shot. That date stood out even for this then-four-year-old who ran out on the back porch to yell to his parents raking leaves in the backyard “the President was assassinated” (with no idea what that meant). Another such date is 9/11, 2001. I was in Warsaw, just having walked into an office whose news show was tuned to live pictures from New York.

I’d suspect even “knuckleheads” would know whether they saw or were near history-altering events. Nobody confuses being in Berlin on November 9, 1989, with people dancing, say, on a fence in Bremerhaven.

Going back to 1989, I’ll share my memories of democracy on the march. I arrived in Poland May 25 for a three month study summer. My first stop was supposed to be a month at the Catholic University of Eichstaett in West Germany, but my ticket was through Warsaw. I got to Poland on a Friday morning — for the second time in my life — for a 36-hour stay. I do know that, while the government’s official exchange rate was $1 = 30 Polish zloties, the black market rate on the street was then $1 = 3,000 zloties.

My train for Munich left on Saturday night. The first part of the evening was spent with a bunch of twenty-something Poles who were going back to construction jobs in East Germany. We crossed the Polish-East German border around 4 am, something I know because I was apparently the only Westerner on the train and the East German border guard had to open his office to stamp my passport. We chugged across East Germany all morning, arriving at the “inner German” border between Gutenfurst and Hof about 11 am. For the next hour, East German police basically ripped the train apart looking to see if there was anybody hidden under the seats (there wasn’t).

I was in a compartment with a Polish professor who was heading to Munich to bring money back to Poland for copy machines that would be used for the semi-free elections the Communists had to concede on June 4. I remember the East German guard sliding the compartment door closed as he told us not to get out until we crossed the border. As we passed an ugly mass of barbed wire, I noticed one flag: not the flag of the nominally independent “German Democratic Republic” but the blood red flag of the USSR. It was clear who ran this jail.

I got to Eichstaett and we began our summer seminar in “the Christian Roots of European Culture.” I remember the next week listening to the evening radio news. There was good news: in the June 4 semi-free elections in Poland, the Russian lackies known as “Polish Communists” lost every seat they were not guaranteed in the lower house and 99 out of 100 seats in the resurrected Senate. But there was also bad news: for days, they had been talking about a buildup of the army in Beijing and, on June 4, we learned the military had taken over Tiananmen Square, the place where Chinese students had erected their “Goddess of Democracy,” a replica of the Statue of Liberty.

Like I said: I’d think I’d remember that if I saw it.

With the massive blowout in Poland, there was now a huge problem: If rule of law was to be followed, a government would have to be formed that accounted for the shift in power. But there were two questions: Would Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the traitor who declared martial law on his own people in 1981, allow the results to stand? And, even if he did, would Gorbachev?

By that point, the Polish communists were maneuvering in Parliament to try to preserve their monopoly on power, alternating between throwing a few crumbs to Solidarity (a few minor ministries) and threatening that Solidarity should not “disturb” the division of Europe. By that point, I had gotten to Rome for the Summer School of Polish Culture which professors from the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL) lectured in at the John Paul Pilgrim Home on Via Cassia. Those lectures were illuminating about how the situation in Poland had deteriorated by the late 1980s.

But I had my own experience. Back then, if you traveled to Poland you got a visa in your passport and a stamped card with your picture on it taken at the border. My card was taken at the Polish/East German border. Did I have to get a new stamped card before I returned to Poland? Nobody was sure, so they called the Polish Embassy in Rome, which said, “yes, come and get the card stamped.”

By the time I got there, it was almost midday and they wanted to close. I asked for the visa card, only to be told by a bureaucrat that he could not stamp it. “Why? You told the Polish Home this morning you could.” “We can’t. The visa in your passport says Polish Peoples’ Republic Consulate in New York, but your card would say Polish Peoples’ Republic Embassy in Rome!” “So, what’s the problem?” “Don’t you see the difference? This says Polish Peoples’ Republic in New York, that says Polish Peoples’ Republic in Rome!” “No—I don’t see the difference,” I replied. “They both say “Polish Peoples’ Republic.” At that, the officious consul looked at me condescendingly and said, “You’re joking!” At that, I couldn’t resist shooting back, “I’m not joking, but after this month’s election everybody knows your ‘government’ is the biggest joke on this continent.” He threatened to take my visa back. I told him he’d have to reimburse me for the currency exchange they required ahead of time and I doubted his government would happily refund hard currency for its play money. In the end, I got a letter for the border and we parted ways.

In July, I made my way back to Poland, with no problem on the border, and spent the next month at KUL. Apart from our classes, everybody seemed to be constantly watching the debates in parliament as the communists tried to cling to power and Solidarity held its ground. Of course, the economy was deteriorating further. I remember walking into a grocery store two blocks from the university one afternoon to find vinegar, oil, and some bread.

By the middle of August, the Reds had to admit the jig was up when their allied parties broke ranks, declaring they’d back Solidarity. Finally, by August 20, there were hints of a Solidarity-led government and, on August 25, Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first free prime minister of Poland since World War II. I’d shake his hand the next March in New York.

The crack in the Iron Curtain had begun. The Germans who did discos on the Berlin Wall in November owed it to the Poles who held the Gdansk Shipyard in 1980 (and the Pole elected to the papacy in 1978).

I left Poland August 25, proud of what I saw, even though I also saw the economic suffering of the people. The zloty, whose black market exchange rate was 1:3,000 May 25 had fallen to 1:15,000 on August 25.

By the end of 1989, one after another of the Communist dictatorships of Central Europe — Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania — toppled. On December 31, Poland renamed itself what it was before World War II: the “Republic of Poland.” And, for 35 years, it’s been America’s most loyal regional ally.

So, I know exactly where I was in the summer of 1989. And I find it absolutely unconvincing that somebody who saw the suppression of freedom that summer might be confused about where he was when.

Thirty-five years after the fact — an anniversary we must not forget this year — I am proud of the flame of freedom that was kindled in Warsaw and eventually brought down that red rag I saw flutter over the “Inner German Border.” My regret is that the same freedom did not take light to cleanse East Asia.

But whether it did or not, I think I’d remember it. Especially if I think I know more than my opponents about China.