The Solidarność Inventories, 1980 - 1990
At the end of the 1980's and through the good offices of foundation colleague Klaus Reiff, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Library took over a comprehensive collection of printed "underground materials" by the Independent and Self-Governing Trade Union Solidarność. From 1980 to 1983, Klaus Reiff worked as a Councillor at the German embassy in Warsaw. During that time, he upheld an intensive contact with the Polish opposition. He had a particularly close relationship with the Solidarność (Solidarity) trade union. Both during the period of its legal operation and later during the time of martial law, when the union was operating from the underground, Klaus Reiff collected all available documents and brought them to Germany by making use of his diplomatic immunity. In regular intervals, he paid visits to his contact persons at the local Warsaw organisation, the Mazowsze branch of Solidarność, the Silesian Solidarność units in Wroclaw, Katowice and the trade union's Gdansk headquarters in order to take delivery of the documents prepared by the contact persons.
In all these cases, the Polish trade unionists explicitly voiced the request that he bring these documents to the Western countries in order for the documents to inform people in the West of the goings-on in communist Poland and for them to escape destruction. During that period of martial law, the possession of Solidarność and other opposition groups' documents was a punishable offence. Klaus Reiff began collecting the documents in 1981. The major part of his collection, however, was accumulated after martial law was declared on 13 December 1981. On returning, Klaus Reiff handed over most of the documents to the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Later, Klaus Peter Schneider, an employee of the foundation, added to the collection - his contacts mainly furnished us with publications from the university environment. For many years, the Solidarność collection was only indexed very roughly according to archival aspects. Due to work organisational reasons, it was neither possible to create any finding aids nor to establish any scientific bibliothecal documentation.
In 1999, the Erich Brost Foundation provided the funds necessary to conduct an adequate expert indexing of the Polish trade union materials. Thus it was possible to entrust the inventory to a native speaker who catalogued the stocks.
Professional indexing of the inventories led to a printed stock record:
- Bartel, Irmgard
Freiheit und Nation : Gewerkschaft Solidarność und unabhängige polnische Presse 1980 - 1990; ein Bestandsverzeichnis der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung / bearb. mit Unterstützung der Erich-Brost-Stiftung von Irmgard Bartel. - Bonn, 1999. - 93 S. : Ill. - (Veröffentlichungen der Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung ; 10) ISBN 3-86077-864-1
Online version available (only in german language)
Irmgard Bartel, the stock record's compiler, structured the documentation's 560 titles according to regional aspects. In the data base version, the meta data can be researched by means of keyword, statutory corporation and title indexes.
Solidarnosc materials exist all around the globe, scattered among various institutions. A large collection, for instance, was compiled at the University of Bremen's East Europe Research Centre.
In the network of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI) there are two institutions which own significant collections: The Zurich-based Swiss Social Archive and Milan's Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.
Modern communication technology allows for a networking of the scattered inventories. Let us hope that the national and international inventories of the free Polish trade union movement will be presented in their entirety under the umbrella of the East Europe Virtual Specialized Library.
In 1999, the collection's father, Klaus Reiff, contributed a short essay to the printed version, which illuminates his special relationship with Solidarność.
His contribution, "Die polnische Gewerkschaft Solidarność und ihre Publikationstätigkeit 1980 - 1983" ["The Polish Trade Union Solidarność and its Publication Activities 1980 - 1983"] offers a true-to-life introduction to the subject and examines the tremendous difficulties which collectors had to contend with in those days.
Bonn, im November 2003
Dr. Rüdiger Zimmermann, Head of the Library
Search in specialised catalogue Solidarność Inventories