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Title: Józef Frejlich collection,
Date (inclusive): 1891-1968
Collection number: 68023
Collector:
Frejlich, Józef, collector
Extent:
81 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize folder
(33.8 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Writings, correspondence, bulletins, press releases, serial issues, pamphlets, and other printed matter, relating to Polish
history and politics, socialism in Poland, Poland during World War II, the Yalta Conference, Poles in the United States and
Canada, anti-communist movements, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Includes some correspondence of J. Frejlich and newspaper
articles written by him.
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], Józef Frejlich Collection, [Box no.], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired.
Also available on microfilm (84 reels).
Increments may have been received since this finding aid was prepared. Please check Stanford University's online catalog Socrates
at
http://library.stanford.edu/webcat to find the full extent of the collection.
Jozef Frejlich, collector, historian, and economist was able to leave Warsaw in 1940 as a result of the efforts of his party
colleagues, who were members of the government-in-exile in London. As an active and well-known member of the Polish Socialist
Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna), he was smuggled through many borders to Portugal where, in 1942, he received a visa
to the United States. Upon his arrival in New York the following year, he was hired by the Polish Consulate to oversee the
government's financial operations. Later he was transferred to the German Department of the Polish Information Center, and
remained there until its closing in 1945. His main assignment was to stay in touch with German and Jewish-Americans circles,
which were of particular interest to the Polish diplomatic services. His own political views also brought him closer to the
activities of the socialist groups, but he soon found himself in conflict with those who manifested their support for the
Soviet Union.
This collection reflects Frejlich's professional activities, as it contains mainly printed materials such as press clippings,
which he analyzed as a press reviewer. However, he continued this work long after the closing of the government's operations.
A large portion of those press clippings originated from the émigré newspapers published in the United States, a majority
of which from the German press, which, to a large extent, reflected the opinions not of the German minority but of the German
speaking Jewish immigrants. There are also some German language titles printed in Switzerland, a country with good insights
into the political developments on the European continent.
Frejlich's political association with the socialist movement both in Poland and in the United States is reflected in a large
set of documents left for him in the last will of Wladyslaw Fischler, who was active in the Zwiazek Socjalistow Polskich w
Stanach Zjednoczonych. They illustrate the liveliness of political life among Polish immigrant workers in the United States.
The collection also includes Frejlich's articles written for numerous Polish-American journals, as well as rare documents,
periodicals, and monographs supplementing other collections in the Hoover Archives on World War II, socialism, and Poles in
the United States and Europe, particularly the records of the Ministerstwo Informacji i Dokumentacji and of the Polish Information
Center.
The papers were part of a larger shipment delivered to the Hoover Archives in 1969. Besides materials that originated in the
Polish Information Center, the shipment contained several thousand books deposited at the Hoover Library. Because of Frejlich's
interest in the history of socialism, he was offered the position of honorary curator of the Polish socialist collection;
unfortunately, his advanced age didn't allow him to accept that offer.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the repository's online public access catalog.
Yalta Conference (1945)
Poles--Canada.
Poles--United States.
Socialism--Poland.
World War, 1939-1945.
World War, 1939-1945--Diplomatic history.
Canada.
Poland.
Poland--History.
Soviet Union.
Russia (Federation)
United States.
Poland--Politics and government.
World War, 1939-1945--Poland.
Anti-communist movements.
Communism.
Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov'.