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Title: Boleslaw Boreysza papers
Date (inclusive): 1939-2008
Collection Number: 2008C23
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: In Polish and English
Physical Description:
6 manuscript boxes
(2.5 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Personal and military documents, correspondence, and photographs relating to Polish military activities during World War II,
and to Polish émigré affairs.
Creator:
Boreysza, Bolesław, 1921-2002
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2008.
[Identification of item], Boleslaw Boreysza papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Boleslaw "William" Boreysza (1921-2002), a librarian-cataloger, served in the Hoover Institution Library for more than thirty
years until his retirement in 1990. Boreysza 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. He participated in and was a witness to the events in Poland,
Soviet Russia, the Middle East, and Italy in World War II.
A native of Eastern Poland, Boreysza fought in the anti-Soviet underground during 1939 and 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, 3rd Carpathian Infantry Division, made up mostly of former GULAG prisoners and
deportees, Boreysza 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 immigrated to England and later to Canada, where he received degrees in Slavic studies, political
science, and 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.
Scope and Content of Collection
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, sent from the former KGB archives in Vilnius.
The majority of the materials connected to his war-time activities are in the first half of the
Biographical File and the beginning of the
Photographs series. The second half of both of these series and the majority of the
Correspondence series is largely personal in nature, capturing components of the life of a wounded war veteran and single émigré man building
a new life in North America while also interacting with his European past and enduring Polish family connections.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Poland -- History -- Occupation, 1939-1945
Polish people -- United States
World War, 1939-1945 -- Poland