The State Archive in Wroclaw is probably the most frequented office in Wroclaw by foreign visitors. They come for several days to seek relevant information. The visitors include foreign and Polish genealogists, historians, archaeologists, political scientists, sociologists, ethnographers, linguists, geographers, geologists, biologists and economists. 15 kilometres of the records are the archive's chief treasure.
Conference and exhibition
The State Archive in Wroclaw celebrates the 70th anniversary of the ending of World War II with a conference on "Archives Open onto the Future: The Archive Legacy of the Polish North and West in the Perspective of Fond Access and Processing". The conference is accompanied by an exhibition.
The aim of the conference is to showcase a variety of state and church archive experience in processing and lending access to archive fonds with particular emphasis on historic records and their use for Polish archivists. Another important subject is historic records digitisation, the process of which both facilitates access and protects original records against damage. The conference features historians and archivists from several different archives and universities.
The conference is accompanied by an exhibition which illustrates the long and winding road that both Polish State and Church Archives have gone through in the North and West of Poland since their inception until today. The boards represent archivist pioneers who came to the Recovered Territories from the East of Poland and other regions. They safeguarded the archive records that escaped the ravages of war and also restored the buildings and organised first archive institutions. The exhibition also brings the earliest records documenting the discovery and take-over of the archive materials immediately after World War II, legal acts establishing new archives as well as photographs representing the archives and their furnishings. A special section is devoted to events featuring politicians, artists, scientists and Church hierarchs.
The idea to organise the conference and exhibition came from Professor Władysław Stępniak, State Archives General Director, and Professor Kazimierz Kozłowski, long-standing Director of the State Archives in Szczecin. The exhibition is curated by Grażyna Trzaskowska, PhD, who has also edited the exhibition's catalogue.
The conference starts at 10 am on 7 October 2015 at the State Archive in Wroclaw (ul Pomorska 2). The preview (by invitation only) starts at 2 pm. The exhibition is open to the public from 8 October to 5 November 2015, from 9 am to 6 pm on working days and from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturdays. Admission is free.
