Issue of
October 29, 1997
 
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Taube Family
Foundation and NEH support Hoover's Polish archives
Grants from the Taube
Family Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Humanities (NEH) will enable the Hoover Institution to
undertake a two-year project to enhance preservation of
and access to its Polish archival holdings, which
constitute the most significant collection of Polish
archives outside Poland.
Arrangement, description,
indexing and microfilming will be carried out for seven
major collections: the archives of the Polish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Information and
Documentation, and the Polish embassies in the United
States, former Soviet Union and Great Britain, as well as
the papers of Wladyslaw Anders, commander of the Polish
forces during World War II, and Stanislaw Mikolajczyk,
prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
Related
Information:
These unique archival
materials document diplomatic and military policy and
events of the interwar period and the Second World War,
mass deportations of Polish citizens to the Soviet Union,
the post-World War II division of Europe and the
beginning of the Cold War, Polish-Soviet relations, and
political movements for the liberation of Eastern Europe.
Among the collections
included in the project are archives of the Polish
government evacuated from Poland via Romania in September
1939, during the first days of the Nazi-Soviet invasion,
as well as documents generated and collected by various
Polish institutions and agencies during and immediately
after the war. They include 30,000 testimonies and
depositions of Polish citizens, survivors of Soviet
prisons and deportations, as well as about 10,000
original release certificates from Soviet camps. These
materials, along with related and complementary sources
found in the collections, comprise the most extensive and
comprehensive original documentation of the Soviet gulag
system available outside of Russia.
Once the collections have
been cataloged and microfilmed, a complete microfilm copy
will be given to the Polish State Archives, thus
repatriating these records to a free Poland after 60
years.
The collections complete
significant gaps in the history of Poland. Also, since
the collections contain important information on tens of
thousands of Polish citizens, many people will be able to
recover their family histories and in some cases to
verify their eligibility for compensation and government
support based on survivorship of their World War II
ordeal.
The project is made
possible by a $50,000 grant from the Taube Family
Foundation and an NEH grant consisting of $190,000 in
outright funds and $50,000 in matching funds.
"Because of the
generous support of the Taube Family Foundation and the
National Endowment for the Humanities, we will be able to
preserve a valuable set of archival materials as well as
make a significant contribution to international goodwill
by returning to the Polish people an important part of
their history," said Hoover Director John Raisian.
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