Conducts research and collects data on the global history of labour, workers, and labour relations

Karel Roskam, Africa Expert

Recently, the institute acquired the archive of publicist, radio commentator, and South Africa expert Karel Roskam.

Roskam was born in Amsterdam on March 7, 1931, and passed away on January 17, 2010 in Hilversum. During his study of international public law at the Free University, he became involved in South Africa and the struggle against apartheid, which remained his main concern throughout his life.

The Institute’s collection is not Roskam’s complete archive; in the 1990s he deposited a part of his archive with the Mayibuye Centre of the Robben Island Museum near Cape Town. Yet, enough relevant material remained to justify a personal archive at the IISH. In addition to containing many articles and publications by Roskam on Africa and other subjects, it also includes correspondence on his time in South Africa in 1959, insight in the debates within the VARA broadcasting organization on foreign politics in the 1970s and 1980s, and an interesting set of documents relating to the Nigeria-Biafra conflict and the response to that in the Netherlands in 1968-1970.

More material on Roskam’s anti-apartheid activities can be found in the archives of the Broadcasting for Radio Freedom organization Omroep voor Radio Freedom which he co-established and led for a long time. This can also be found at the International Institute of Social History.

See also: blog by Kier Schuringa on Karel Roskam

Posted: 
2 January 2013