Metadata: Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers Party in Białystok
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- State Archives in Białystok
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Państwowe w Białymstoku
- Postal address:
- Adama Mickiewicza 101, 15-257 Białystok
- Phone number:
- +48 85 743 56 03
- Web address:
- http://www.bialystok.ap.gov.pl/
- Reference number:
- 4/1070
- Title:
- Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers Party in Białystok
- Title (official language):
- Komitet Wojewódzki Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej w Białymstoku
- Creator/accumulator:
- Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers Party in Białystok
- Date(s):
- 1948/1990
- Date note:
- [1919, 1945/1947] 1948/1990 [1993]
- Language:
- Polish
- Extent:
- 105.14 linear metres (13,306 folders)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection consists of records created or assembled as a result of the activities of the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers Party (PC PUWP) in Białystok. They can be divided into records created by the Provincial Committee itself, records created by the Central Committee, as well as by subordinate party instances and non-party institutions.
The most valuable materials include documents from provincial conferences, minutes of plenary and executive meetings, information from meetings and conferences, reports on the activities of institutions and bodies, information on current social and political events. Due to the scope of the PC’s responsibilities, the records contain information on all aspects of life of the inhabitants of the province. Much of the material collected concerns internal party matters, e.g. 4/1070/0/35 / 2941- Minutes of meetings of PZPR activists working in the Jewish community.
Valuable research material can be found in the Memoirs series, where there is documentation related to people of Jewish background who participating in the formation of communist structures, for example ref. no. 4/1070/0/34/2804 - Izaak Rapowicz, Memoirs of a Communist Party of Western Belarus (KPZB) activist, and of some activists of the KPZB from Zabłudów and the surrounding area. The collection also includes studies and publications on the Jewish population, such as, for example: 4/1070/0/35/2941 - Szymon Datner, In memory of the 200,000 Jews of Białystok Province murdered by the Germans.
The fonds also includes personnel records of employees of the party apparatus and social activists, which include the personnel files of Jewish inhabitants of the province. In the collection of PC PUWP there are also documents related to, for example, the events of March 1968, reactions of members of the Białystok branch of the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (TSKŻ), the situation and position of Jews in that period.
In addition, the collection includes documents produced in connection with the activities of the Jewish community of Białystok, and especially the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (TSKŻ), which mobilised in the organisation of the celebration of subsequent anniversaries of the Białystok Ghetto Uprising of August 1943, which was a tradition begun in 1945, as can be seen in letters sent to the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party with a request to approve the program of the event.
The collection also includes a series of minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the Nationalities Committee at the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers Party in Białystok, which provides information on the current activities of the Jewish minority, such as the decision of the National Minorities Committee at the Provincial Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party in Białystok to admit the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (TSKŻ) to the election campaign for National Councils in 1958.
- Archival history:
- There is no complete data on the transfer of records to the Archive by individual organisational units of the Provincial Committee. The acquisition of records flowed in unevenly and over time. In the Archives of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, the records were processed in batches. The documentation of the Provincial Committee of the PUWP (KW PZPR) was stored in the Archives of the same (KW PZPR). When the party was dissolved, the records were taken over by the Provincial Council of the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (SdRP). The State Archives in Białystok took over all the documentation in the Archives of the Provincial Committee of the PUWP (KW PZPR) on the basis of the transfer protocol of 28 March 1990. Initially, these records were located in the building of the former Provincial Committee of the PUWP (KW PZPR) on ul Liniarskiego. In 1992, they were placed in a warehouse on ul. Wesoła and in 2001 they were moved to the building of the State Archives on pl. Kościuszki.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Polish United Workers Party was formally established at the Unification Congress held on 15-21 December 1948. It self-dissolved on 29 January 1990 during the last (11th) Congress. The Provincial Committee, according to the principle of democratic centralism, was subordinate to the Central Committee. On the other hand, it was subordinate to county and town committees with county rights. After administrative changes, when the reach of the Provincial Committee’s operations was reduced and the counties were abolished, the municipal, municipal-communal and commune committees were subordinated to it.
- Access points: locations:
- Białystok
- Access points: persons/families:
- Datner, Szymon
- Subject terms:
- Commemoration
- Communism
- Memoirs
- Finding aids:
-
A printed inventory is available at the State Archives in Białystok.
Artur Pasko, “Komitet Wojewódzki PZPR w Białymstoku w latach 1948-1956; organizacja I główne warunki działania”, Dzieje Najnowsze 34/3, 161-166.
Michał Gnatowski, “Powstanie, rozwój I zawartość archiwum przy KW PZPR w Białymstoku”, Rocznik Białostocki, nr 5, 1965, pp. 255-266.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Urszula Gierasimiuk; December 2020