“…Prior to the fall of the Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, IHF had conducted quite a few unprecedented missions into the Soviet Union and its satellites to inquire about human rights conditions and the situation of Helsinki monitors and other human rights defenders and activists. …”

“…The collection is especially valuable for researchers interested in grave human rights abuses such as censorship, detention, torture, or forced medical treatment in Communist dictatorships; in the collapse of the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, and the emergence of transitional democracies in their places; and also for those concerned with the mushrooming of alarming tendencies along with them: internal displacement and forced migration, ethnic conflicts, xenophobia and election violence. …”