Polish History and Culture

Search the Archives is a state-run site that presents data from the Integrated Archive Information System (ZoSIA), where the state archives and other institutions describe the materials and store their digital copies.

Website of all Polish state archives.

The Archives of Modern Records store Polish records created by central authorities and country-level institutions and associations after 1918.

The Central Archives of Historical Records store the most important Polish state documents from the Middle Ages to the end of World War I.

KRONIK@ (the National Repository of Objects of Science and Culture) is an ICT system run by the Polish Ministry of Digitization, providing access to digital resources on Polish national heritage in the fields of science, culture and administration.

The National Digital Archives store photographs and sound and video recordings created since the early 20th century.

Archives of Contemporary Art from the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Polish Rural Music Archive

Digital Library of the Polish Ethnological Society is a specialized digital library containing contemporary texts in the field of ethnography, ethnology and cultural anthropology.

The Central Judaic Library presents the collections of the Jewish Historical Institute in digital form on the Internet. The mission of CBJ is to make all the JHI collections available and, by placing them in a historical context, to build a working tool for historians, genealogists and people interested in the culture and history of Jews in Poland. CBJ's collections include the Ringelblum Archive, which is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The Digital Library of Polish Song is a database created in 2007 as part of the mission of the "Library of Polish Song" Cultural Center.

The Digital Memorabilia Archive contains materials from Central and Eastern Europe in their final years behind the Iron Curtain.

Includes digitized books, paintings, photographs, recordings and films from over 2,200 contributing cultural heritage organisations across Europe.

Fototeka contains photographic resources of the National Film Archive's Audiovisual Institute. Its contents are thematically related to the history of Polish film, including stills, negatives and slides, working photos from set, photos of film crew, and photos from film premieres.

Ninoteka contains nearly 200 digitized titles from archival tapes permanently transferred to the National Film Archive's Audiovisual Institute

PAUart contains digitized artistic and scientific collections from the Polish Academy of Arts.

The National Film Archive in Poland was created in 1955. From the beginning it belonged to The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), an association of the majority of film archives in the World. The collection of film reels and archival materials such as posters, photos, scripts assembled in Filmoteka Narodowa is one of the largest in Europe.

The Polonia Digital Library aims to preserve the collections of Polish diaspora organizations worldwide.

Digital archives of the journals Illustrated Weekly (1859-1865) and Chimera (1901-1907).

Digital restorations of films and television series aired by Telewisja Polska (TVP).

STAROPOLSKA is an academic and educational project focused on early modern Polish literature within the sphere of broad European heritage.

Henryk Archacki, 1907-1988, a Polish immigrant, journalist and well-known graphic artist, drew weekly cartoons for Polish-language newspapers for over 20 years in Buffalo, New York.

Jan Bułhak was a prolific Polish photographer who specialized in landscape and architectural photos in Poland and present-day Lithuania and Belarus. In 1905, Bulhak became interested in photography and began to publish his works in various Polish magazines.

This collection of Polish posters were originally printed for the World Peace Council, an international organization that advocates universal disarmament. Our collection came from a set of reproductions selected by Karol Małcużyński published by Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza around 1978.

Digital records of the journal Sztuka (Art) from 1911 to 1913.

The Virtual Archive of Polish Armenians.

The Documentary and Feature Film Studio at Chełmska 21 in Warsaw is a legendary institution where Polish films have been made for 75 years. It was founded in 1949, initially as a center for the production of documentary films and the Polish Film Chronicle, soon becoming an important center for feature films.

"Poland was once the home of the largest Jewish community in the world and until World War II was one of the great centers of Jewish political, cultural, and religious life.YIVO’s Polish Jewish Archive is the only American collection, and one of very few worldwide, which was saved from the destruction of the Holocaust."

Digital collections of the Polish photographer Zofia Rydet, including nearly 5,000 photos from her collection "Zapis socjologiczny" (Sociological Record), which aimed to document different Polish households.

KARTA provides primary sources with personal accounts of Polish history.

These collections spotlight Polish History from pre-966 to the present.

Digital Library of Polish and Poland-Related News Pamphlets from the 16th to the 18th Century

Records pertaining to the Solidarity movement.

Library of Congress collection comprised of 111 bound volumes of cards of well-wishes signed by more than five and half million Polish citizens. The entire collection which includes the greetings and signatures of government officials, noted businessmen, academics, military officials, and students from secondary schools can be viewed on the Library of Congress website

The University of North Texas Library digitized artwork and ephemera from the Solidarity movement of the 1980s.

The guide provides information about Polish historic newspapers and journals that have been digitized by Polish libraries in recent years.

Features clips from thousands of testimonies.

Records of Poles expelled from the country in 1939.

Chronicles of Terror, the Repository of the Center for Totalitarian Studies, is one of the largest collections of civilian testimonies from occupied Europe and features hundreds of accounts submitted by Polish citizens, who suffered immense hardship at the hands of the German and Soviet totalitarian regimes during the Second World War. The repository has additionally expanded to record testimonies from Ukrainians during Russia's full scale invasion, which started on February 24th 2022.

The Digital Library of the Main Library of Labor and Social Security is an online collection of books pertaining to labor and social security in Poland.

Digitized collections of private libraries

The National Library of Poland

The Center for Social Archiving contains materials from social archives from all over Poland, including documents, photographs, and audio and video recordings.

Digital archives from the Polish Solidarity movement.

Online library of the Dominican Order in Poland

Federation of Digital Libraries

Virtual Book Collection of the FIDES Federation of Church Libraries

Pedagogical Digital Library

Polona is a website created by the National Library of Poland through which the resources of the National Library and other institutions are made available free of charge in digital form.

Maps produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Virtual Library of Polish Literature