05 June 2022

Deputy Minister of the Department for Culture and National Heritage visits Polish Underground Movement Study Trust

Report from the visit

On 29 April 2022 PUMST had the pleasure of hosting a visit by Polish Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Jarosław Sellin. Minister Sellin was in London on a short two-day visit to London and PUMST was his first port of call.

Accompanying the Minister were

Piotr Wilczek – Polish Ambassador to Great Britain
Radosław Gromski – Polish Consul in London
Jolanta Miśkowiec – Director of Department of Polish Heritage Abroad and
Donata Jaworska – Head of Department, Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad.

PUMST Volunteers and committee present at the meeting:

Eugenia Maresch – Chair of PUMST
Kazimierz Czoch
Wanda Kościa
Bartosz Piasecki
Jolanta Potocka
Janina Stapf
Michał Wójcik
Krzysztof Bożejewicz

The Minister is the highest-ranking Polish official (from Poland) to have visited our Archives in recent years.

After a brief welcome by our Chair, Eugenia Maresch, our Archivist, Krzysztof Bożejewicz, gave a brief presentation of the history and work of the PUMST interwoven with anecdotes. Although the visit was brief, we found time to show some of the greatest treasures of our collection: one of two original copies of the Pilecki Report by Pilecki and his personal, handwritten correspondence with General Pełczyński. Also, the passport issued to Jan Nowak Jeziorański and his wife in 1944 in Switzerland by the so-called Lados Group.

We took this opportunity to thank the Minister for the financial support we have been grateful to receive since 2013 and which has allowed us to continue our projects, chief among them, the digitalisation of the archive.

The meeting was sadly briefer than we had hoped but warm and constructive.

We thank our notable guests for their visit and warmly invited them to visit us again.