Securityarchives Portal

The general division of operational case files kept in the former Security Service archives was four-fold:

1) Covert collaborators’ files (reference no. I),

2) Operational case files (reference no. II),

3) Investigation case files (reference no. III),

4) So-called object and topical case files (reference no. IV).

This four-fold division was roughly shaped at the very beginning of the communist security police in Poland in 1944–1945, although it was crystallised in the regulations issued in 1955 and persisted up to the very end of the activities of that service. The changing categories of operational proceedings (as defined in the operational instructions) resulted in the running of several types of operational case files, which – after closing the cases and their relevant case files – were archived in the four collections mentioned above. This occurrence (and others) was the reason that in the relevant collection several categories of archived case files can be found, i.e.:

1) Case files of informants and agents (agency network categories used up to 1960), secret collaborators, “operational contacts,” and “consultants,” that is, people providing clandestine assistance to the security police without filing reports (e.g., postal censorship assistants, owners of safe houses and flats, people allowing the use of their addresses as dead-drop letterboxes, and so on), as well as “candidates” (i.e. persons considered for recruitment as possible collaborators) – in fact, the documentation of all the current and historical forms of collaboration were kept in the “I” reference number series. The personal files of informants, agents, secret collaborators, contact persons, etc. were in the archive, merged with their work files (during active proceedings, the personal files of informants and others containing documentation concerning their identity and financial or material rewards were kept separate from the files containing their reports, marked only with their pseudonyms);

2) Case files of so-called “operational registry cases” (sprawa ewidencji operacyjnej) (a category of operational control procedures for lower levels of engagement, used up to 1966), registry forms (kwestionariusz ewidencyjny) (a category of operational control procedures for lower levels of engagement, used from 1966), operational verification case files (sprawa operacyjnego sprawdzenia) (initial surveillance or operational investigation category), operational surveillance cases (sprawa operacyjnego rozpracowania) (category for operational control procedures of high level engagement) were kept in the “II” reference number series. From 1963, the collection also contained the archived files of personal operational control of Catholic priests (Teczka Ewidencji Operacyjnej na Księdza, TEOK); those files however, were extracted in 1989 from the series and subsequently destroyed.

3) Case files containing the documentation of investigations conducted by security police investigative branches, not only mirroring documentation passed to the public prosecution office, but also containing documents deemed ‘delicate’ or not fit for release, primarily reports from undercover surveillance, clandestinely intercepted letters, wiretapping or eavesdropping transcripts, and similar were kept in the “III” reference number series.

4) Case files containing the documentation of “object” and “topical” case files, i.e., files with records of the operational oversight procedures of institutions, factories, companies, and registered organisations, etc., for the sake of their ‘protection,’ as well as of groups and organisations seen as the opposition, were kept in the reference number “IV” series.

Of course, as in any other complex organisation, the number of proceedings and relevant paperwork was significantly higher, and it resulted in the development of many categories of case files (and relevant file series). Other categories of files were divided into the following five series:

1) Personal files of Security Service (security police) functionaries (reference number “V”);

2) Personal files of the Citizens’ Militia (criminal and public order police) functionaries (reference number “VI”);

3) Personal files of civilian employees (reference number “VII”);

4) Personal files of soldiers serving in units subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (border troops, counterinsurgency troops) (reference number “VIII”);

5) Personal files of firefighters (reference number “IX”).

This overall division was added to the general collections containing the so–called “administrative paperwork,” i.e., files with documentation that were produced and circulated outside of the registered operational case files (including correspondence, activity reports, maintenance paperwork, etc.). There were also vast collections of documents conducted separately, primarily those concerning the issue and governance of foreign passports. The passport files with the associated card index of passports issued constituted (and still constitutes) a voluminous separated archival repository.

In the “administrative paperwork” collection, records were arranged according to the units that passed the documents to the archive according to “transfer protocols” (i.e., lists of archived files). The general structure of the archived paperwork then followed the chronological sequence of the “transfer protocols” (and – to some extent, the structure of the Ministry’s units). However, in the “administrative” repository there were a few distinct parts forming separate collections: the Department III collection (administrative paperwork and chronologically ordered activity reports of the Department III units and territorial units subordinated to Department III), the ministry’s daily bulletin collection, and the collection of the ministry’s normative acts. The Department IV collection (so-called Zespół Kler, i.e., Clergy fonds), which contained a number of operational case files and administrative paperwork, had a special character. The Clergy fonds had its own archival log and was arranged according to sixty-one topical categories concerning the Department’s activities targeting the Catholic Church and other religious communities in Poland (with numerous sub-categories, i.e., covering a separate sub-series for monastic orders and congregations).

Among the separate file collections, the most distinctive is the repository of the foreign intelligence unit – MSW Department I (Departament I MSW). For strict secrecy, the intelligence archive was kept separate from the general operational archive of the ministry (with some minor exceptions), in an independent registry unit, and then in Division XVIII of Department I. The case files were archived under a reference number consisting of the current number of the archival log in chronological order with the letter ‘J’ added. The archival reference number did not point then to the character of the case file; the collection contains administrative paperwork, a collection of operational reports arranged according to topical ranges (the so-called “topical case files”), as well as operational case files, including the case files of invigilated persons and agents, safe houses and dead-drop letter boxes at home and abroad, object case files, and case files concerning intelligence stations of various levels abroad as well as intelligence functionaries deployed abroad.

The types of index cards and indexes are described in the “Card Indexes, Registries, and Index-cards” chapter.