13 December 2025

ARCHIVING HISTORIC PHOTOHRAPHS AT THE PUMST ARCHIVES IN LONDON

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Program - Support for Polish Archives, Libraries, and Museums Abroad - 2025 Edition

WABIM 2025 – MKIDN - TASK NR 2 i 3 – Collection 19 WiN

Dear Friends, Fellow Researchers, and Historians,

Today we have more good news! Thanks to the funds from the WABIM project (Ministry of Culture and National Heritage), we have finally started the archiving of our historical photographs.

In the archives of the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London, there are already over 15,000 of them. It’s better not to mention the main archive of the Institute—there is so much more there to explore and archive. We do not forget them! :)

The photographs, the vast majority of which have absolutely unique historical value, depict events from the Second World War. They mainly concern the Polish Underground State and the Home Army (AK), but among them are also those from the post-war period, documenting the life of Poles in London.

One of the most interesting groups of photographs is the album from Audley End, located on the border of Essex and Cambridgeshire—a historic manor that was the main training centre for the Cichociemni (Silent and Unseen) in the 1940s—a group of Polish soldiers trained to be parachuted into occupied Poland to lead the underground movement there. The collection of about 600 original photographs not only showcases training and military exercises but also includes dozens of snapshots of the everyday lives of Polish soldiers stationed there.

To this day, there are traces of our heroes in the halls located on the third floor of the enormous Audley End mansion. We hope that in the not-so-distant future, we will be able to liaise and initiate cooperation with English Heritage - Historical England (the organisation managing the entire complex) regarding the organisation of an exhibition commemorating the presence of Poles at Audley End. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Returning to the photographs, another collection worth noting is the images taken in London and its surroundings during the post-war period. Here, most of the Polish Armed Forces in the West and soldiers of the Home Army—primarily the Warsaw Uprising fighters—were forced to settle permanently in Britain, establishing hundreds of organisations and associations, including the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, and the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London. The Pentecost, or “Zielone Świątki” in Polish, with Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski at Fawley Court, or the visit of Professor Władysław Bartoszewski in London in the 1960s, are just a few examples of how unique and valuable our collections are. Definitely worth preserving!

As part of this year’s WABIM project, we have undertaken the archival work (creating detailed archival descriptions) of between 2,000 to 3,000 photographs. All descriptions are being placed in an Excel based inventory. After processing all the photographs, we plan to upload their descriptions and "thumbnails" to the ZOSIA database and on the "Szukaj w Archiwach" portal, both run by the Polish National Digital Archives (NAC).

Speaking of ZOSIA, which we have come to like very much, it is worth mentioning that not only descriptions of photographs will be uploaded there... but more on that in the next post.

Everything was made possible thanks to substantial funding from MKIDN and the professionalism of the Institute's staff.

Thank you!

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WE ARCHIVE, DIGITISE, REFORM, AND MODERNISE!

ALSO, THANKS TO THE SUPPORT OF MKiDN!

Check back here more often! Share the good news with friends, ‘like’ and share further…

Best regards,

The Team of the Institute and the PUMST