• Labour, Social Welfare & Health (Wydział Pracy, Opieki i Zdrowia)

This contains lists of orphans, charity organisations, schools, etc.

• General (Wydział Ogólny)

Everything that you can’t find in the other two sections.

Other Archives are:

• Local Authorities (Starostwo Grodzkie [place-name, or Starostwo Powiatowe [place-name]).

These are the authorities one step down from the voivodship.

• State police HQ (Komenda Policji Panstowowej w [place-name]).

Apart from criminal matters, there are reports on minority groups, characteristics of wanted persons etc.

• Town Council Acts (Akta Miasta [place-name]).

Every kind of thing that a town council dealt with.

A guide to the State Archive in Lublin. ( Ul. Jezuicka, 5, Lublin)

This guide can be applied to other archives.

The Lublin State Archive main entrance is situated in Ulica Krolewska, between the Trynitarska gate to the old town and the cathedral. There are collections here covering the Lublin and Chelm region from the 18^th to the 20^th century, including family archives of landowners, aristocracy and bourgeoisie.

To use the archive, you must first get permission from the archive office. You must enter your name in the register of users by filling in a special form. You must include your full name, address, nationality, phone number, and purpose for using the archives. Whatever you do, don’t say that you are looking to recover property lost during WW2! – especially if you are Jewish. There is an unwritten agreement between the city council, archives and courts to try and block such help, not so much anti-Semitic as anti-loss of valuable property. they don’t mind so much if it is property in the countryside, which is dirt cheap, but city property.

You will have to pay a charge for the use of the archives, which is fairly low (probably the equivalent of a few dollars).

Remember to leave your coat and bag with the cloakroom attendant as you are not allowed to take them in with you. This is common practice in Poland, including many libraries.

The ‘Archival workshop’ is on the second floor, and here you will find inventories of what they have, divided into the sections mentioned above. Within each inventory you will find a number of files with, often, a brief summary of the information in each folder.

If you need help (I am not sure of their command of English, you are better off choosing someone under 30 as they are more likely to have studied English instead of Russian at school. They can indicate which collection you probably need, how they are organised, what they contain etc.

So, if you were interested in the period of WW1, this is how you may proceed:

• See the ‘Main Guide to the Archive in Lublin ()
• Look at material for this period in this index.

You find collection X, inventory number 555.

• Go and find ‘555’ in the Inventory.

Browse through the inventory until you find reference to document Y, which looks interesting.

• Note the number of the file, carton or singular act (so-called sygnatura) in which it is kept.
• Go to the desk and fill in a request form to order the file/carton/act.

You can work on your material the next day, after 10am.

(Thanks here to Konrad, a postgraduate of KUL studying for his doctoral thesis here in Lublin.)