A briefing summarizing the last 15 years of work carried out by the specialists from the IPN Archive in Katowice on the manual reconstruction of documents destroyed by the Security Services took place at the seat of the IPN in Katowice.

"These battered papers look like puzzle pieces that must be put together to tell a story," said the IPN President Karol Nawrocki, summing up 15 years of efforts that the local archival unit put into renovating the destroyed records.

"It's an exceptional enterprise," the IPN head added, "but also painstaking work that requires plenty of patience from our historians and archivists . . . More stories will be uncovered in the next 15 years, and we're looking forward to more successes by our archival staff."

The press conference was attended by:

• Karol Nawrocki,Ph.D. ,the President of the IPN

• Andrzej Sznajder, Ph.D., the Director of the IPN Branch in Katowice,

• Renata Dziechciarz, Ph.D., the Head of the IPN’s Branch Archives in Katowice.

After the conference, the participants were able  to visit the Branch Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance in Katowice (102 Józefowska Street).

The program included a visit to the conservation and preservation workshop where reconstruction techniques and tools were presented along with examples of restored archival documents. A series of files stored in the classified documents warehouse, incl. boxes containing pieces of torn up documents, files concerning priests and files destroyed with the use of shredders were also  shown.

In 2001, the Branch Archive in Katowice, was the only Archive in Poland to take over 267 specialized bags full of damaged files from the State Protection Branch Office in Katowice.