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Chronicles of Terror
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Chronicles of Terror
Chronicles of Terror (Polish: Zapisy Terroru) is a digital internet archive established by the Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies in August 2016. Initially, it provided access to the depositions of Polish citizens who after World War II were interviewed as witnesses before the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. From 17 September 2017, the database also presents the accounts of Poles who fell victim to repressions perpetrated by Soviet totalitarianism.
The Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, set up in 1945, documented German crimes committed during World War II, conducted investigations and published the results of its activities. In 1949, its name was changed to the Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland. The commission was active throughout the country.
The commission's tasks, their scope expanded to include Communist terror, were taken over by the investigative division of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in 1998. The commission's documentation, including witness testimonies, was also passed over to the archives of the institute. Acting on the basis of an agreement dated 11 February 2016, the IPN started submitting digital copies of these materials with the objective of making them available over the internet. The Chronicles of Terror website premiered on 4 August 2016, initially providing access to a database containing more than 500 testimonies given before the commission.
On 25 January 2017 the Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies signed an agreement with the Hoover Institution, pursuant to which Chronicles of Terror would be supplemented by depositions relating to Communist crimes, taken from the archives of Anders' Army. After World War II, documents containing the accounts of Poles, both soldiers and civilians who left the Soviet Union together with the Polish Army, were deposited with the Hoover Library, for it was feared that they could have been seized by the Communist authorities.
"Chronicles of Terror" contains nearly 4,000 depositions (the majority are also available in English translations). Accounts describing crimes committed during World War II in Warsaw and its environs were published in first order. The database also holds depositions made by former prisoners of extermination camps and concentration camps. Plans have been made for its progressive expansion by the addition of testimonies concerning events that occurred in other locations.
In the spring of 2017, it published more than 500 depositions depicting the German Terror in Kielce region, and these were followed in October 2017 by accounts describing crimes committed by the invaders in Radom region. The following topics are addressed in the database.
The database contains depositions pertaining to the complex of German camps in Oświęcim. These testimonies include the accounts both of prisoners of the concentration camp itself and of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A number of them depict the medical experiments carried out on inmates and Sonderkommando members fate.
Chronicles of Terror contains approximately 100 testimonies relating to the street executions that were regularly carried out in occupied Warsaw. The accounts include depositions made both by eyewitnesses and the families of victims. Selected testimonies have been brought together in a collection entitled Reign of Terror – Executions in the Streets of Warsaw.
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Chronicles of Terror
Chronicles of Terror (Polish: Zapisy Terroru) is a digital internet archive established by the Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies in August 2016. Initially, it provided access to the depositions of Polish citizens who after World War II were interviewed as witnesses before the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. From 17 September 2017, the database also presents the accounts of Poles who fell victim to repressions perpetrated by Soviet totalitarianism.
The Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, set up in 1945, documented German crimes committed during World War II, conducted investigations and published the results of its activities. In 1949, its name was changed to the Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland. The commission was active throughout the country.
The commission's tasks, their scope expanded to include Communist terror, were taken over by the investigative division of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in 1998. The commission's documentation, including witness testimonies, was also passed over to the archives of the institute. Acting on the basis of an agreement dated 11 February 2016, the IPN started submitting digital copies of these materials with the objective of making them available over the internet. The Chronicles of Terror website premiered on 4 August 2016, initially providing access to a database containing more than 500 testimonies given before the commission.
On 25 January 2017 the Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies signed an agreement with the Hoover Institution, pursuant to which Chronicles of Terror would be supplemented by depositions relating to Communist crimes, taken from the archives of Anders' Army. After World War II, documents containing the accounts of Poles, both soldiers and civilians who left the Soviet Union together with the Polish Army, were deposited with the Hoover Library, for it was feared that they could have been seized by the Communist authorities.
"Chronicles of Terror" contains nearly 4,000 depositions (the majority are also available in English translations). Accounts describing crimes committed during World War II in Warsaw and its environs were published in first order. The database also holds depositions made by former prisoners of extermination camps and concentration camps. Plans have been made for its progressive expansion by the addition of testimonies concerning events that occurred in other locations.
In the spring of 2017, it published more than 500 depositions depicting the German Terror in Kielce region, and these were followed in October 2017 by accounts describing crimes committed by the invaders in Radom region. The following topics are addressed in the database.
The database contains depositions pertaining to the complex of German camps in Oświęcim. These testimonies include the accounts both of prisoners of the concentration camp itself and of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A number of them depict the medical experiments carried out on inmates and Sonderkommando members fate.
Chronicles of Terror contains approximately 100 testimonies relating to the street executions that were regularly carried out in occupied Warsaw. The accounts include depositions made both by eyewitnesses and the families of victims. Selected testimonies have been brought together in a collection entitled Reign of Terror – Executions in the Streets of Warsaw.