Social history institute director retires after leadership transition

Historian Leo Lucassen is stepping down as director of the International Institute of Social History after six and a half years. Historian Lily Knibbeler has been appointed as his successor.

The institute, which opened in Amsterdam in 1935, has collected global records of social and labour movements for ninety years. Its collection now holds nearly 6,000 archives, one million books and periodicals, and 150,000 drawings and prints.

Among the items kept in the archive vaults is the world’s only handwritten page of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, which has been designated Unesco heritage. The institute also holds secret government files concerning the squatter movement.

Wartime dispersal across Europe

During its first four years, the institute received vast amounts of material from countries including Russia, Poland, Germany, and Spain to keep the records safe from authoritarian regimes. When German forces invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, Nazi officials arrived to seize the documents.

According to Lucassen, the occupying forces wanted to use the materials for study rather than destroy them.

The holdings were scattered across Europe to locations including Berlin, Frankfurt, and Polish salt mines, before slowly returning to Amsterdam after the war, though some pieces remain missing.

Protecting modern activists

Security remains a focus for the institute because many records contain sensitive details about contemporary social movements. These include papers naming living activists, such as members of Hong Kong’s umbrella movement.

Knibbeler said the institute focuses on preserving the voices of marginal groups, minorities, and countermovements alongside official histories. Staff actively work to ensure requested research papers cannot be traced back to living activists or their families.

Source: AT5