NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, "for her extraordinary merits in the field of the development of German Polish relations" the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, one of the most valuable awards of the Polish state. For more than ten years now Elzbieta Adamski is in charge of the visit program for former forced labourers. NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne The NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne () was founded by a resolution passed by the Cologne city council on December 13, 1979 and has become the largest regional memorial site in all of Germany
Historical Archive of the City of Cologne municipal archive and library was erected between 1894 and 1897 to a Gothic revival design by Friedrich Carl Heimann: it was inaugurated in December 1897. The new building was large enough to accommodate the archive at a time of accelerated growth when the city of Cologne was absorbing many previously independent towns and villages. During World War II the building suffered damage from bombing. However, since all records and manuscripts had been moved into secure storage from as early as September 1939, the archive did not suffer any substantial loss. Since the archive moved to its new location in 1971,