J. P. Kuiper papers
Jan Pieter Kuiper was born in 1922 in Norg, in the province of Drenthe, the Netherlands, and studied medicine in Groningen. In the 1950s he was sent to Indonesia by the Calvinist Churches to work as a doctor there. In the 1960s he worked for the Labor Inspectorate in Breda and Voorburg. In 1968 he defended his doctoral thesis, "The Industrial Medical Officer and the Working Man," at the University of Amsterdam. In 1972 he was appointed professor of social medicine at the Free (Calvinist) University in Amsterdam. Kuiper developed the idea of "health and hygiene" and advocated inclusive health care, with special attention to the patient's well being, home situation, and income in case he needed full or partial disability. Kuiper died in 1985. His archive consists mainly of his manuscripts and articles, as well as correspondence about his doctoral degree, his professorship, and inaugural lecture. Brief archival description
Photo: J.P. Kuiper (1922-1985) in: Medisch Contact vol 50 (1995) no.49; J.R.Kuiper papers.
Posted: January 2009

Labor migrants from Slovenia in the Netherlands collection
In 2007 and 2008 the IISH received archival materials, documentation, photos, and historical objects pertaining to Slovenian miners and their descendants in the south of the Netherlands. In the 1920s and 1930s, miners from Slovenia flocked to the province of Limburg to work in the booming coal mines. The majority of these workers settled in Limburg and married coreligionist (Roman Catholic) local women. Their cultural identity had been forged in part by the Roman Catholic Church, in choirs and brass bands and in local Saint Barbara societies. They were joined together under the name of Zveza (the Union). The Slovenian choral society ZVON (The Bell) in Heerlerheide was among the most important of these societies. The collection of Slovenian labor migrants is a product of research on this minority group by Milena Mulders. A publication by Mulders on the history of the Slovenians will appear in 2009. Description of the collection
Photo: Choir Slovensko Pevsko Društvo "ZVON" Heerlerheide-Holland 1930-1940.
Posted: January 2009

Anton Constandse papers
In September 2008 the IISH was happy to receive an important addition to its rich archive on the anarchist, Anton Constandse. Constandse's grandson, Paul van der Gaag, donated hundreds of his letters, postcards, and manuscripts from the 1930s and 1940s. A major portion consists of correspondence between Anton and his (second) wife Gerda, from October 7, 1940 to September 17, 1944. During these years Constandse was imprisoned as a hostage by the Nazis, first in Buchenwald, and then Haaren, two detention centers in St Michielsgestel, and finally in Vught. On February 8 and 14, 1942, Anton Constandse stated that he renounced anarchism; he also wrote about how other political prisoners influenced his thought and perceptions. It will take some time before this vast addition to the archive has been completely incorporated. Archival description
Photo: part of the correspondence of Anton Constandse
Posted: January 2009

Kurt Steinhaus papers
After having completed his military service with the rank of lieutenant, Steinhaus (1938 Stettin [Szczecin]-1991 Heidelberg) studied economy in Hamburg and sociology and political science in Marburg am Lahn. In 1966-1967 he joined the Federal Board of the Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund (SDS, Socialist German Student Union). In this position he coordinated protest actions against the Vietnam war. He wrote a book on this war: Vietnam. Zum Problem der kolonialen Revolution und Konterrevolution. Frankfurt/Main 1966. He finished his academic education with a PhD thesis in sociology: Zur Soziologie der türkischen Revolution. Frankfurt/Main 1969. He joined the Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (DKP, German Communist Party) and worked for the Institut für Marxistische Studien und Forschungen (Institute of Marxist Studies and Research) in Frankfurt/Main. From 1974 he held high offices in the party organization, and for sime time was the personal assistant of chairman, Herbert Mies. The IISH received Steinhaus' personal papers, which are mainly of a political nature.
Biographical note and photo: Georg Fülberth, 'Politik und Disziplin. Kurt Steinhaus (1938-1991' in: Boris, Dieter, Willi Gerns und Heinz Jung (Hrsg.), Keiner redet vom Sozialismus. Aber wir. Die Zukunft marxistisch denken. In Memoriam Kurt Steinhaus (Bonn 1992). (German text)
Brief archival description
Posted: January 2009

Banners from the Soviet Union
The IISH was presented with two banners dating from the last decade of the Soviet Union. The banner presented here is from 1985. It was made in the provincial town of Mineral'nye Vody on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War in 1945.
Photos: Front and back side of the banner.
Posted: January 2009

Civil Servant in the Dutch East Indies: Jan Petrus de Putter
The IISH received Jan Petrus de Putter's papers through the kind agency of his family.
De Putter grew up in Zeeland-Flanders, received vocational training as an Indian civil servant, and in 1932 became an auditor for the Civil Service in Java and Sumatra. After the Japanese invasion he was separated from his wife and children and deported to a camp, where he died in 1944. His daughter Ineke wrote a book on her father and the family's adventures. The papers include correspondence between De Putter and his wife from 1932 to 1942, documents on his work while in office, and many documents that shed a light on his wife and three daughters' situation during the Japanese occupation, its aftermath, and their return to the Netherlands. A photo album and two family films made in about 1939 are included.
Posted: 15 October 2008

David H.D. Truong's Papers
The IISH received an important addition to the archive of David H.D. Truong, formerly known as Truong Dinh Truong. Truong was born in 1945 as the son of a South Vietnamese presidential candidate and came to the US in 1965 to study. When the war in Vietnam came to an end, he was active in the Vietnamese-American Reconciliation Center. He was arrested in January 1978 and was accused of communicating classified information to a foreign agent, viz. the ambassador of Vietnam in Paris. The trial against Truong and his codefendant Ronald Humphrey started in May 1978, and Truong was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Truong took his case to the US Supreme Court and was released in the eighties. The IISH already had copies of the case file. Now Truong's correspondence with his wife Carolyn L. Gates and other personal documents from 1980-1986 have been added.
Posted: 15 October 2008

Albert Elbrink's Papers
"Mr. Elbrink, primary school teacher in Laren, is one of the signatories of a manifesto instructing the Dutch People to refuse military service both on land and at sea."

This is the opening of a letter by the former minister of the Home Office Mr. Cort van der Linden, esq., suggesting that Albert Elbrink was guilty of a serious violation of the law. Elbrink, teacher and later head of the Humanitarian School in Laren in the province of North Holland, was detained in the Amsterdam Penitentiary Center from July 24 to August 3, 1916. During this period he received more than 180 picture postcards, plain postcards, and letters of support. These are now included in the Albert Elbrink papers at the IISH. Probably the teacher had no time to become bored. One of his correspondents wrote in a postscript: "If possible, please send us a word?"
In 1908 Albert Elbrink (1875-1949) left the Social Democratic party and joined the Georgist Vereniging Gemeenschappelijk Grondbezit (Common Property of Land). He considered social democracy an impure and unsatisfactory medium of socialist thought, and at the same time dismissed revisionism as too bourgeois and Marxism as too dogmatic. Albert Elbrink's papers
See also: Jacob van Rees's Papers, inventory number 32, and Louis Adrien Bähler's Papers
Posted: 15 October 2008

Pictures of Dora Russell
Harriet Ward presented the Institute with a beautiful addition to the archive of her mother, Dora Winifred Russell-Black, which had earlier been deposited at the IISH. Very special is a gift of photos on Dora Russell. Many of these show a surprising view of a private world. Pictures of family holidays alternate with a series of political acquaintances. A detailed description of the Russell papers is to be found at: Dora Russell's Papers.
Two samples of the hundreds of new photos are presented below.
Posted: 15 October 2008

Russian Samizdat printings
Since the 1970s, "samizdat" (self-published) materials from the Soviet-Union arrived in the Netherlands through various channels. Recently, the IISH received a collection of these printings, most of them original mimeographs made in the USSR. They contain information about the situation of political prisoners, minutes of dissident trials, and calls for solidarity directed to organizations abroad. The materials cover the period of 1970-1980s. The materials will be added to the Alexander Herzen Foundation archive as an annex.
Posted: 15 October 2008

Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV)
The disastrous fires in the Kader Factory (Thailand, 1992) and Zhili Toy Factory (China, 1993), that killed more than 250 workers led to a campaign to improve health and safety rights of workers and victims in Asia. As a result, in 1997 ANROAV was constituted. ANROAV is a coalition of victims' groups, trade unions, and other labour groups across Asia (thirteen countries are represented), all committed to the rights of victims and striving for overall improvement of health and safety at the workplace. The secretariat is currently held by the Peoples Training and Research Centre (PTRC) in India.
The ANROAV collection at IISH contains documents from the period 1996-2004, mainly dating from the time when the secretariat was based in Bangkok.
The latest additions are the participants' files for the annual meeting in 2007 in Hong Kong (August 29-31, 2007). Brief archival description
Posted: 5 June 2008

Spanish Republican Army, Brigada Mixta Banner
The banner of the 120th Brigada Mixta of the Spanish Republican Army's 26th division dates from the Spanish Civil War. This division was made up of soldiers who had participated in the militia of the anarchist Columna Durruti. Mr. Joan Sans I Sicart (1914-2007), the last survivor of the Brigade, donated this banner to the IISH.
Posted: 5 June 2008

Picture postcards from Germany and the Soviet Union
An exchange with the Prometheus Antiquariat in Berlin enabled the Institute to access about 280 old political picture postcards. The German component dates from 1910 to 1930, the Soviet Russian component dates from 1920 to 1930. Some of these have text written on them and were dispatched to private addresses, like the one on the left on the occasion of the 8th Bavarian Workers Musical Festival in Nurnberg, 1910. The postcard on the right, on the occasion of the elections in Germany, 1910, was not used.
Posted: 5 June 2008

Addition to the Ernest Mandel papers
In February 2008 a large ancient metal crate arrived from Belgium full of papers dealing with the Fourth International and Ernest Mandel. Ernest Mandel's papers had been deposited at the Institute years ago. This ancient crate had been donated by Ernest Mandel personally to the Belgian Trotskyist Georges Dobbeleer around 1950, when it was feared a Third World War would break out, and the papers were to be sheltered in a safe place.
The crate contains records, bulletins, and other printing matter for internal purposes, as well as correspondence by Mandel from 1946-1948 to acquaintances all over the world including Ernst Federn, survivor of Buchenwald, Livio Maitan from Venice, George Novack, one of New York's intellectuals, and Michel Pablo, the Greek revolutionary who acted as general secretary of the Fourth International since 1946. A fair amount of correspondence with Dutch Trotskyists is included: Andries Dolleman, Maurice Ferares, and Sal Santen. The correspondence offers an intriguing picture of Trotskyism shortly after the Second World War, an international movement that was partly legal and partly illegal during the first postwar years, one that existed between hope and fear and bore the marks of Second World War and the Holocaust. Brief archival description.
Posted: 5 June 2008

Addition to the Elisabeth Fisher-Spanjer papers
A sizeable addition to the papers of Elisabeth (Bep) Fisher-Spanjer arrived in January 2008. Bep Spanjer was born in Amsterdam, 1915, and grew up in revolutionary workers' circles. Events on the international scene determined the choices she made in her life, as did her life partners, including the widely known revolutionary Henk Sneevliet, Henk Scholte, a journalist, the mysterious Joop Zwart, and Frank Fisher, a German Jewish Trotskyist who emigrated to the US. As a seventeen-year-old girl, Spanjer joined the Revolutionaire Jeugdbond and became active in the syndicalist Nationaal Arbeids-Secretariaat. During the Second World War she was involved in the film industry, which had been forced to toe the national socialist line. Shortly after the war, she carried out an assignment by the Dutch government to smuggle foreign currency into Germany. During the seventies and eighties she acted as a literary agent for the Alexander Herzen Foundation, a creation of Karel van het Reve. She agitated against the detention of political dissidents in psychiatric wards in the Soviet Union. The Spanjer papers include a great deal of correspondence and documents about her various activities and biographical material about her partners Scholte, Zwart, and Fisher. Brief archival description
Posted: 5 June 2008

Campaign Against Psychiatric Abuse. British section of the Geneva Initiating Committee Against Abuses of Psychiatry for Political Purposes
The Campaign against Psychiatric Abuse (CAPA). The British section of the Geneva initiating committee against abuses of psychiatry for political purposes struggled against the fate and treatment of prisoners detained in psychiatric hospitals and prison hospitals and against the systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes. The CAPA worked for the release of Jewish, Orthodox, and Protestant prisoners in the Soviet Union. It paid much attention to the 'Let Misha Go Campaign' aimed at the release of the young boy Misha whose mother Marina Voikhanskaya, a psychiatrist from Leningrad, was permitted to leave for Great Britain in 1975 and the campaign for the release of Semyon Gluzman, a psychiatrist from Kiev, arrested in 1972 because of his 'Analysis of expert clinical assessments of P. Grigorenko' and later famous for his 'Psalms and songs of sorrow' written in camps and in exile and published in 1994. The archives contain correspondence, bulletins, pamphlets, and other documents on the campaigns in the period 1975-1988. Brief archival description
Posted: 5 June 2008