Anti-Apartheid and Southern Africa

In 2008 the IISH acquired an extensive collection of archival materials relating to the anti-apartheid and Southern Africa solidarity groups in The Netherlands.
It concerns the archives and related library and documentary collections of the three former anti-apartheid groups which merged into the Netherlands institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) in 1997. The collected archives consist of documents from organizations such as the South Africa Committee (from the 1960s), the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Angola Committee/Holland Committee on Southern Africa, the Eduardo Mondlane Foundation, Institute for Southern Africa and Broadcasting for Radio Freedom. They also include material from and about well-known activists, such as Sietse Bosgra, Conny Braam, Peter Waterman and Klaas de Jonge, and the archives of a number of local Southern Africa groups.

Together with all of the archives of anti-apartheid groups, such as the working group Kairos and the SA/NAM Association, and those of private individuals like writer and journalist Martin Bailey, which are already housed at the IISH, this handover will create an unprecedentedly rich collection, which includes not only materials on the Dutch anti-apartheid and solidarity movement, but also on the struggle in Southern Africa and the international campaign against apartheid. These archives and collections cover the period 1960 to 2000.

The documentation collections are made up of a large number of books, journals, photographs, posters and hundreds of videos, cassettes, badges, flags, T-shirts and other memorabilia.
- Overview Anti-Apartheid and Southern Africa collection

Limited access

In order to realise the transfer of the NiZA collection, its description and integration into the IISH holdings, an extensive project will be executed from April 2008 to April 2011, enabled by a very substantial donation from the SNS Reaal Fonds. The former NiZA archivist, Kier Schuringa, will be implementing this project.

During this project the collection will be accessible for researchers and others, but only by contacting the archivist Kier Schuringa: telephone +31-06-20474460 or email
So there is no access to the NiZA collections through the reading room of the IISH.

See also:

Press release on the handing over of the NiZA collection to the IISH (March 28, 2008)(pdf)
Overview of the Collections on African Labour and Social History at the IISH (pdf 507 Kb)