International Memorial Association calls for support for the KARTA Center

This text is also available in Polish.

On Monday, September 2, the KARTA Center in Poland issued a statement revealing that the center is on the verge of bankruptcy and about to cease its activities. Its board and staff notify that, since June 2024, it has been difficult for the organization to finance its projects and publications and to pay for maintaining its premises. The staff of KARTA Center have not received salaries for two months and yet continue to work, as they stay true to its main goal of documenting and popularizing history.

The KARTA Center is the oldest non-governmental organization in the country, which, along with the Solidarity movement, has become emblematic of a free, independent and democratic Poland. KARTA Center was created 42 years ago as an underground publication in response to the imposition of martial law in Poland and has grown since into a prominent historical-educational and human rights project, whose main mission is to preserve authentic, non-politicized history, build an open society and promote democratic change in post-Soviet countries.

In addition to being a journal, a publishing house and a library, KARTA Center is also the largest public archive in Poland dedicated to the Soviet repression and underground civic movement. In 2022, as a reaction to Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine and the liquidation of the Memorial Society in Russia, Center KARTA launched a new project, “East European House”, designed to become a platform for dialogue and understanding for democratic communities in post-Soviet states.

The KARTA Center remains a longstanding partner of Memorial. Our friendship and collaboration began as early as 1992 and resulted in many projects, including the Week of Conscience in Warsaw, the School Essay Competition, the Dissident Hour, and the Index of the Repressed.

Between 1997 and 2010, Memorial and KARTA Center published 16 joint books of memory in Polish and Russian. Combined, these books contain data on over 115,000 Polish citizens who were repressed in the USSR.

Research of the Katyn crime, which is one of the most significant and painful events in the historical memory of the Polish people, occupies a special place in KARTA Center’s activities. Since 2011 and to the present day, KARTA Center has been working with Memorial’s Polish Program on a project to compile and publish archival databases on the victims of the Katyn crime:

•  “Executed Prisoners of the Kozelsk Prisoner of War Camp”;
•  “Executed Prisoners of the Ostashkov Prisoner of War Camp”;
•  “Executed Prisoners of Starobelsk Prisoner of War Camp”;
•  “Executed Prisoners of prisons of Western Ukrainian Penitentiaries”;
•  “Executed Prisoners of prisons of Western Belarusian Penitentiaries”.

The following books of memory have already been published within the project:

• Murdered in Katyn / ed. A. Guryanov. Мoscow, 2015.
• Murdered in Kalinin, buried in Medny / ed. A. Guryanov. Мoscow, 2019. In 3 volumes.

The book of memory “Killed in Kharkiv” is being prepared for publication.

After the liquidation of the International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Center, KARTA Center offered comprehensive support to the Memorial, including to many individual staff members and volunteers.

After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, KARTA Center channeled their resources into supporting Ukraine. Documentation of the first months of the war was published in an issue titled “War on Good”. Launching “East European House” was another important initiative by KARTA Center to resist war and dictatorship.

Memorial International Association urges the Polish government, as well as the government of the European Union, businesses and international foundations, to support KARTA Center and thus enable them to pursue their cause, which is extremely important to the Polish and international community.