On 3 February 2023, the IPN Archive in Warsaw was visited by Fabrice Filiez, Swiss Ambassador to Poland, and Matthias Dettling, Swiss Deputy Chief of Mission. The event was attended by Mateusz Szpytma, Ph.D., Deputy President of the IPN and Marzena Kruk, Director of the IPN Archive.

The participants of the meeting discussed plans for organizing exhibitions and other cultural projects in order to promote  the history and good relations between Poland and Switzerland. The famous protagonists of Polish and Swiss history include the Polish President in the years 1926—1939, Ignacy Mościcki, who conducted scientific research at the University of Fribourg, and the famous watchmaker Antoni Patek.

During the meeting in the IPN Archive, some documentation of the University of Fribourg depicting the suffering of victims of German totalitarianism in occupied Poland was presented. The guests also had a chance to see the exhibition Polish roads through Switzerland. The fate of the soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Rifle Division from 1940 to 1945 on photographs from the collection of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil/ Auf Polenwegen durch die Schweiz. Die Schicksalsjahre 1940-1945 im Leben der Soldaten der 2. Schützendivision, dargestellt in den Fotografien aus den Beständen des Polenmuseums in Rapperswil. The exhibition was the result of cooperation between the Institute of National Remembrance and the Polish Museum in Rapperswil.

The Swiss diplomats visited also the conservation laboratory and the rooms where the archival documents are stored. They were presented with evidence, testifying to the surveillance of employees of the Swiss Embassy in Poland by the communist security service. They also learned about the newest technolgy of recovering paper documents content by using a video spectral comparator.

More about the cooperation between Poland and Switzerland in the field of history:

150 years of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil