The Polish American Historical Association (PAHA), for which we publish The Polish Review, is seeking documents from members of the WWII diaspora, their families, and organizations to add to the historical record of this time.

This effort helps historians and scholars in this area ensure more comprehensive and detailed history, which not only benefits our Polish studies titles, but the understanding of this period of history and the people who lived through it.

The call for submissions from PAHA is below.

To facilitate the preservation effort of the exile generation, the Polish American Historical Association (PAHA) is inaugurating a new project titled “Polish Migrant Memoirs and Letters: Documenting the World War II Diaspora.” PAHA is asking to deposit their existing records in archival and research institutions. This includes memoirs (published and unpublished), diaries, letters, interviews, and photos. While the war and immediate post-war period is the main focus of the search, they are interested in the entire life of these migrants, not just the war years.

With the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, the Polish nation faced an overwhelming experience of displacement and dislocation. As a consequence, close to six million Poles found themselves outside Poland’s new borders; at the end of the war, nearly 500,000 Poles remained in exile, scattered over many countries on all continents. About 140,000 Polish immigrants — political exiles, civilian refugees, displaced persons, former soldiers, slave laborers, and prisoners of concentration camps – settled permanently in the United States.

With this war generation passing, it becomes ever more urgent to tell their story, to preserve the record of their experience and make it available to the next generations. The Polish American Historical Association is a professional organization international in scope, and in existence since 1943, whose goal is scholarly research and promotion of the study of the history and culture of the Polish American diaspora. PAHA is alarmed by the disappearance of documentation on the history of the World War II and immediate postwar wave of Polish migration to the United States. The documents, along with the deed of gift, should be sent to: