Hoover Institution Archives acquires the Boleslaw “William” Boreysza Papers and NKVD Files

February 27, 2008

Images from the Boleslaw “William” Boreysza papers Click on the image to start the slideshow. Once the slideshow has begun, mouse over the right/left side of image to see the next/previous buttons

Drawing of Boreysza done one week before the battle of Monte Cassino, 1944. Box 1, Boleslaw Boreysza papers, Hoover Institution Archives

Boreysza's NKVD investigation photo, 1940. Box 1, Boleslaw Boreysza papers, Hoover Institution Archives

Boreysza as a Hoover librarian, late 1970s Box 1, Boleslaw Boreysza papers, Hoover Institution Archives

The papers of Boleslaw “William” Boreysza, a librarian-cataloger, who served in the Hoover Institution Library for more than thirty years until his retirement in 1990, have been added to the holdings of the Hoover Institution Archives. Boreysza (1921-2002) known as Bolek to his Polish friends and as Bill to his coworkers, was a well-known figure in the Polish émigré community of Northern California. Today readers can see a lightly penciled WB inside the cover of the many thousands of Hoover books that he cataloged over the years. His quiet profession contrasted with the tumultuous history that swept him up in his younger years, when he participated in and was a witness to the events in Poland, Soviet Russia, the Middle East, and Italy in World War II.

In many respects Boreysza was a “poster child” of Hoover’s rich Polish collections. A native of Eastern Poland, Boleslaw fought in the anti-Soviet underground during 1939-1940, was arrested by the NKVD, and spent time in Soviet prisons and camps. His release certificate from a prison near Arkhangelsk in the Russian North is among 13,000 such documents preserved in the Poland Ministerstwo Informacji i Dokumentacji Collection. As a cadet-officer in General Wladyslaw Anders Polish II Corps, made up mostly of former GULAG prisoners and deportees, Boleslaw fought with distinction on the Italian front, participating in the battles of Monte Cassino and Ancona, where he suffered a serious head wound, resulting in the loss of his left eye. The bullet that caused the injury, and miraculously did not kill him, would remain lodged in the back of his skull for the rest of his life, as shown on X-rays and doctors’ reports in the collection. After the war, Boreysza emigrated to England and later to Canada, where he received his degrees in Slavic studies, political science, and librarianship or library science. He was recruited for the Hoover Library by Witold Sworakowski, the chief builder of Hoover library and archival collections after the Second World War. In addition to cataloging, thanks to his excellent émigré contacts, Boreysza helped Sworakowski expand Hoover’s Polish collections.

Boreysza’s papers consist of his military service documents, photographs, and correspondence. Also in the collection is a photocopy of his extensive NKVD arrest and interrogation file, recently sent from the former KGB archives in Vilnius–one of the first items received as result of the agreement regarding the duplication of these archives concluded by the Hoover Institution and the Lithuanian State Archives.