Colin Ward
The archive of the British anarchist and publicist Colin Ward (1924-2010) was donated to the IISH in 2010. Colin Ward became acquainted with anarchism during his military service in Glasgow. After the Second World War, he joined the editors' team of the anarchist weekly Freedom, and contributed to the journal from 1947 until 1960. He subsequently headed the monthly Anarchy until it ceased publication in 1970; afterwards he wrote books, focusing on themes such as housing, architecture, urban planning, children, and education. In all these publications, he explored the relationships between people and urban setting from an anarchist viewpoint. He concentrated on the multiple forms of self-organization in society, which germinate like seeds under the snow of capitalism, bureaucracy, and nationalism. His books were translated in various languages and had a wide distribution outside the U.K. Besides correspondence, texts of articles, lectures, books, and reviews, the archive contains eleven scrapbooks about architecture and his work from 1943 until 1999. (Text: Kees Rodenburg)
Brief archival description

Book launch in Venice, 1997

Colin and Harriet Ward in 2008

Eberhard Dähne (1938-2010)
Eberhard Dähne was born in Freienwalde, Brandenburg, Germany. Alone, at the age of fifteen, he left the GDR. He went to Kiel to study agricultural science and became involved in the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), becoming chairman in 1961. As a member of the SPD he was active in the Socialist Youth organization "Die Falken" (The Falcons). In 1961 the SPD and SDS split because of divergent views on the perspectives of left wing policy in Western Germany 1961. In 1963 Dähne settled in Marburg and became a close colleague of Wolfgang Abendroth. Between 1966 and 1968 he participated in an unsuccessful initiative to establish an alternative leftist SPD. In 1968 he founded the Institut für Sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung (Institute for Scholarly Social Research). In Marburg he was active in the local branch of the Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (DKP, German Communist Party) and various trade unions. In 1972 he received his doctoral degree in sociology. From 1973 to 1989 he was a staff member of the Institut für Marxistische Studien und Forschungen (Institute for Marxist Studies and Research) in Frankfurt/Main. He specialized in municipal government and published the standard work 'Gemeindeleute' about red and green alternatives for community politics in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1989 he left the DKP. From 2001 to 2006 he was a city councilor in Frankfurt as a representative of the Democratic Socialists, although he was not a member of the party. (Text: Huub Sanders)
Posted: December 2010

Azerbaijan Democratic Party
In the nineteenth century, the southern Caucasus (where the three republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are now located) included a large migrant labor community from Iran. In 1946, following the fall of the Soviet-backed Autonomous Government of Azerbaijan (which lasted a year), tens of thousands Iranian Azerbaijani left the country as political refugees to the southern Caucasus, mainly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. While this refugees resided in the Soviet Union, they had established a political network which preserved and created fascinating archival materials. Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, this network was in disarray. After local Azeri authorities in charge of issuing permission for taking the archives out of the country blocked such action, the IISH's MECA regional staff found another route. With the help of a local trader in nuts, the archive was taken from Azerbaijan, through the northern Caucasus, Russia, and Ukraine to Poland. From Poland this archive finally arrived in Rotterdam. The archive contains correspondence and other documents on the Azerbaijan Democratic Party in the Region of Meshkin 1945-1946. (Text: Touraj Atabaki)
Brief archival description
Posted: December 2010

Banner, Southern Africa Committee, n.d.

Angola Committee / Southern Africa Committee
In October 2010 a start was made in processing the archive of the Angola Committee (partly acquired earlier). This group was established in 1961 to support the struggle for freedom in the Portuguese colonies Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and the Cape Verdean islands.
In the early 1970s, the Committee was known for its boycott against the import of coffee from Angola. After the collapse of the Portuguese colonial empire, the Committee changed its name to the Holland Committee for Southern Africa (1976) and broadened its scope to include all of Southern Africa. In the 1980s, the Committee organized a persistent campaign against oil deliveries to South Africa together with the Kairos action group and Shipping Research Bureau. The Committee became a large organization active in the sphere of publicity, lobbying among politicians, and supporting the freedom struggle and economic development in Southern Africa. In 1997 it merged with other former anti-apartheid and Southern Africa solidarity groups into the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZa). (Text: Kier Schuringa)
Brief archival description (pdf)
See for more information The Netherlands against Apartheid, 1948-1994
Posted: December 2010

Reports from Buchenwald
Han (Henri) Pieck (1895-1972), a Dutch artist and communist who worked for the Soviet Union’s secret service, had been interned in Buchenwald concentration camp since 1941. Pieck represented the Dutch prisoners in the International Camp Committee, an organization of inmates established by the German communists. He was also a member of the Dutch Camp Committee. This small archive contains many documents composed during or shortly after the liberation of the camp (11 April 1945), including broadcast messages. About 21,000 inmates of various nationalities were alive at the time of liberation. In April the Dutch committee held daily meetings, and the minutes of those meetings are included in the archive. It also drafted a program for a radical people’s party and wrote letters to HM Queen Wilhelmina about these plans. Some post-war letters from former comrades address Han Pieck's unwillingness to write back. The archive was donated by Igor Cornelissen. (Text: Margreet Schrevel)
Brief archival description
Posted: December 2010

Piet van Staveren
From Joop Morriën, the IISH received a small but good additional to the papers of Piet van Staveren (Rotterdam, 1925). Van Staveren deserted to the Indonesian side during the first Dutch Military Intervention in July 1947. After his arrest in September 1949, Van Staveren was transported to the Netherlands and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
The addition contains documents on the candidacy of Van Staveren as a member of the Dutch Communist Party CPN for the elections to the Dutch Lower House in 1952. Other documents include the petitions for a pardon, but most beautiful are letters sent to Van Staveren on the occasion of his release from the Leeuwarden prison in the summer of 1954. The Dutch Communist leader Paul de Groot congratulated him in a letter saying, "For the Indonesian people, the name of Piet van Staveren is an enduring sign of the existence of good Dutchmen who are their friends." Van Staveren also received moving letters from the Serikat Buruh Pekerdjaan Umum (SBPU) and the Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia (SOBSI), both Indonesian trade union organizations. (Text: Bouwe Hijma)
Brief archival description

Van Eeden (with hat) at Walden, Bussum

Society for Common Ownership of Land
The IISH received an important addition to the archive of the Vereniging Gemeenschappelijk Grondbezit [Society for Common Ownership of Land]. The Society had been established in 1901 by the Dutch writer Frederik van Eeden, and his Walden colony in Bussum was the spearhead of the movement. Their argument was that land and means of production should accrue to the community and be shared accordingly. The archive shows the organization in its infancy. The addition includes minutes of the meetings of the board (1916-1931), handwritten annual reports, reports from the local branches participating in the Society, and letters addressed to Frederik van Eeden (1903-1916) that occasionally shed light on the ramshackle potato growing in his Walden colony. In 1919 an inquiry was held among alleged adherents, and they informed the Society about their motives, work, working hours, and income. (Text: Margreet Schrevel)
Brief archival description
Posted: December 2010

Papers of Walter Kendall
In February 2010 the IISH received the vast archive of Walter Kendall. All his life Kendall (born in London in 1926) combined political activism with serious scholarly ambitions. At the age of 18 he started working at the Ministry of Economic Warfare. At the same time he was active in the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and the Labour Party. During the 60s, he directed the magazine Voice of the Unions, and he received a grant to study at Ruskin College, Oxford. In 1969 his book, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900-1921; The Origins of British Communism was published. Until he died, Kendall worked on a book that was to remain unpublished: "The World Revolution, the Russian Revolution and the Communist International 1898-1935."
The Kendall archive includes hundreds of articles written for various periodicals. In addition to writing books and articles, Kendall was active in many other areas. His papers include correspondence on a campaign to liberate Len Wincott, a British sailor and communist who was improsoned in the Siberian Gulag during the 50s, as well as documents on the Polish Solidarity Campaign in Great Britain during the 80s. In October 2003 Kendall passed away after a protracted illness.

Letters from the Netherlands East Indies: Margot de Jonge van Zwijnsbergen,1847-1850
A red leather album named "Precious Keepsake" contains copies of the letters written from the Dutch East Indies by Margot de Jonge van Zwijnsbergen (1819-1850) to her dear friend Marie Bichon Visch. Both Margot and Marie were of noble birth and usually conducted their correspondence in French. In 1847 Margot followed her husband, who was a member of the Governor's household, and settled in the Indies. She wrote about her daily affairs and excursions, complained about the behavior of her peers, and praised the landscape. She feared that her little daughter Augusta might be infected by the "bad examples" of sexual precociousness she was confronted with on a daily basis. This was the main reason why the daughter was sent back to the Netherlands. Margot died in 1850, one month after the death of her husband. Her friend Marie Bichon made the album for their orphaned daughter to commemorate her parents. It is now at the IISH.
Posted: June 2010

Archive of Hazel Elfriede Rosenstrauch
In January 2010, the IISH received a small but interesting archive from Hazel Elfriede Rosenstrauch. Rosenstrauch (born in London in 1945) grew up in Vienna. As a student in Berlin, she was involved in the student movement. In 1967, during a demonstration against a visit by shah of Persia, the student Benno Ohnesorg was killed by a policeman. Many years later it was discovered that this police officer from West Berlin was a member of the East Berlin secret police service Stasi. Rosenstrauch initiated a lawsuit that contested the right to bear arms for the West Berlin police force without explicit permission from the Allied forces. She also claimed compensation for the cost of medical help, damages, and legal action against the policeman who had hit her with his baton. The judicial battle dragged on for some years.
Posted: June 2010

Mr. Wibaut's umbrella and cane
Florentinus Marinus Wibaut, leading light of the Dutch social democrat movement, is often depicted with an umbrella and walking stick. His official statue in Amsterdam, on the Wibautstraat, is no exception. When he passed away in 1936, his cane and umbrella were given to the housekeeper of the Wibaut family as a gift. Her son inherited them and he gave them to one of his IISH contacts in the former social democratic youth movement. After 74 rainy years, these items suddenly surfaced at the IISH, where they are stored amidst gavels, ashtrays, death masks, and urns of other prominent socialists.
Posted: June 2010

Nomadic people in Europe
A rich documentation on the Roma, caravan dwellers, and other nomadic groups in Europe is included in the collection given by Mrs. Josephine Verspaget (born in 1946). As a member of Parliament, Verspaget was the official spokeswoman of the Dutch Labour party (PvdA) on foreign development. She was also a member of the Committee of Experts on matters pertaining to Roma of the Council of Europe. The documentation - reports, annual reports, undergraduate theses, minutes of meetings, etc. shed light on both the policy and image of gypsies and ethnic minorities. The collection enhances the archive of the Stichting Lau Mazirel and the book collection Gypsy life in Dutch children's books.
Two extremes from the Verspaget collection: