Professor Andrzej Paczkowski, historian and deputy head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) suggests a more coolheaded approach to the publication of names of public figures from the secret files stored in the archives.
Professor Paczkowski has told the Polish Radio News Agency (IAR) that the laconic IPN catalogue entries, made by the secret services before, during and after the fall of communism, are often ambiguous and some are not supported by any existing documents.
The professor has stressed that IPN archives should mainly serve as input material for historians researching the information contained in the files and verifying it.
IPN deputy has reminded that the Institute is obliged to publish its catalogues by law and sorting through several more lists may take up to two years. Therefore, according to the professor, one should resist too emotional an approach to them.
The IPN catalogue entries published to date do not include names of the newly elected MPs and senators. They are likely to be released on 5 December.
The issue of whether and how to release the names of those who were being investigated or who had collaborated with the communist secret services came about after the previous government’s ‘Lustration Law’ was deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court this year.