Overview

"Dear Mr. President!" - this is how Zosia Kaczynska titled her letter, asking Boleslaw Bierut - on behalf of herself and her three siblings - to release her mother from prison. This letter did not reach the addressee. Most of the requests for clemency, written by convicts and their relatives, already at the beginning of their journey to the head of state received a note in the prosecutor's office or court: leave without further course. Historian and archivist Janusz Kotanski and former political prisoner Janusz Horodniczy followed in the footsteps of documents found in the archives in search of those harmed by Stalin's repressive apparatus.