Office for Preservation and Dissemination of Archival Records is one of the three main departments of the Institute of National Remembrance - Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation. The Office is situated in Warsaw, its eleven Branch Offices in Białystok, Gdańsk, Katowice, Cracow, Lublin, Łódź, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Warsaw and Wrocław and its seven Delegations in Bydgoszcz, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Kielce, Koszalin, Opole, Olsztyn and Radom. The Branch Offices for Preservation and Dissemination of Archival Records consist of units responsible for evidence and information, accumulation, elaboration and access to files as well as disclosing documents to the public.
The main responsibility of the Office is to collect, preserve, edit and disclose the archival material accumulated by the former secret security apparatus in the period from July 22nd, 1944 to December 31st, 1989, as well as documents of the security organs of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union related to the Nazi and Communist crimes, crimes against peace, humanity or war crimes, and other political repressions committed against people of Polish nationality or Polish citizens of other nationalities from September 1st, 1939 to December 31st, 1989.
All the documentation is kept in appropriate conditions in accordance with the regulations ensuring the safety of the documents, including the act on the protection of classified information.
Office for Preservation and Dissemination of Archival Records collects all the documentation relating to the activities of the secret service apparatus in Poland that has so far been stored in the archives of various offices and central institutions in Poland. By collecting all the documentation in one place, the INR will make the records easily accessible to interested people.
The archived documents are accessible to Polish citizens, especially to the private people who have been repressed by the former Polish secret service and are considered victims of the former system. The archives are also open to historians, researchers and journalists.
