Immigrants from Europe built up the power of America in the 19th and 20th centuries, but life was not easy for those who traveled from the "Old World". Today we know how much they suffered from letters written to the families they left behind. Five European countries-Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland and Sweden-have recognized the value of those documents by joining the EMILE (EMIgrant LEtters) project. The program involves a presentation of the most interesting letters, photos and other documents which illustrate the life of immigrants and their efforts to stay in touch with their respective homelands. The project will be published online at www.emigrantletters.com, but its culmination will be an exhibition of documents on display more or less simultaneously in all five participating countries. In Warsaw, the exhibition will open July 21 at the Historical Museum of Warsaw and continue through Aug. 7. It will then be shown in Mazovia since the exhibit's Polish section is devoted to emigration from this region. The exhibition has been assembled by museums, historical institutes, libraries, archives, institutions of higher education and local authority organizations in Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland and Sweden. In Poland, it is co-organized by a participant in the EMILE project, the State Archive of Warsaw. The exhibition's patron is the Mazovia Province Marshal.

The exhibit will look similar throughout all five countries and feature the same documents, photographs, momentos and songs. From Poland, these will include documents from investigations by tsarist security services of emigrants and their families. The Polish organizers are urgently searching for music created by Polish immigrants as an expression of their longing for their homeland.

The exhibition focuses on emigration to the United States in 1840-1920 and is designed to spread awareness of the causes of emigration and hardships of life in exile. The waves of immigrants currently arriving in Europe from poorer countries makes the exhibition topical. Furthermore, the project illustrates the differences and similarities in the causes of emigration and stories of ordinary people.

The motivations for Polish emigration were very clear cut. Initially, people fled Polish territories to escape political repression, while the last two decades of the 19th century were a time of economic emigration. Regardless of their reasons, the experience was a difficult one for Poles. The letters on display are exclusively from a collection of correspondence confiscated by tsarist censors and sometimes provide a very fragmented image of the lives of individuals. In contrast Swedes can frequently reconstruct the complete histories of immigrants from letters sent to families. Emigration from Sweden was purely economic and the journey to America was not connected to repression by Swedish authorities. Incidentally, the concept behind the project was the brainchild of the Swedish museum in Kisa-a museum with a vast collection of emigrant letters.

EMILE covers several aspects of emigration: Life Stories, Causes of Emigration, Crossing the Atlantic, Settlement in America, Work in America and Family. Although the project focuses on the 19th and early 20th centuries, the exhibition's creators want to show the relations between those early immigrants and their descendants today. Ryszard Wojtkowski, director of the State Archive of Warsaw, says many American citizens are trying to trace their roots in Poland. The exhibition, if shown in the United States, may therefore help many with Polish ancestry understand their heritage. The organizers are looking for institutions and persons willing to help present the exhibit in the United States. For the time being, it is slated for presentation in participating European countries.

The State Archive of Warsaw will accept any emigrant keepsakes: letters, photos, momentos and songs created by the Polish community in America.

State Archive of Warsaw
7 Krzywe Koło St., 00-270 Warsaw
tel./fax (+48-22) 831-37-31