Since 1992, Poland's Ministry of Culture has been collecting data on the Wartime losses experienced by Polish libraries, as well as among works of art previously located within the post-1945 borders of Poland. Documentation commenced as part of the activity of the Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad, which was established by virtue of a 1991 Resolution of the Council of Ministers. It was in turn under a Regulation of the Council of Ministers dated October 20th 2001, that dispensed with a number of different Government Plenipotentiaries, that the position of Plenipotentiary in respect of Polish cultural heritage abroad was also ended. However, the tasks of the Plenipotentiary were assumed by the Minister of Culture, and more specifically the Department of Cultural Heritage within his/her Ministry. The old Bureau of the Plenipotentiary was in fact maintained within that Department, ensuring that its work could continue. Previously, however (in 1999), some of the competences of the Government Plenipotentiary as regards Polish-German negotiations to bring to an end any unfavourable cultural legacy of World War II were transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

     It has so far proved possible to collate records on losses from more than 40,000 libraries across Poland. However, this in no way reflects the sum total of what was in libraries' possession pre 1939, though it does take in the most important elements, and is also representative in terms of types of item. There is thus a basis for claiming (in particular also in the light of the source documentation that has been received) that the inter-War collections of private plus institutional libraries extended to some 70 million volumes, from among which the losses accruing from the Second World War are considered to have been at the 70-75% level (thus involving at least 50 million items). From the latter list there are more than 1,200,000 items subject to individual documentation (with many more considered to exist) deriving from so-called special collections and including items of literary heritage of particular value that can be neither recreated nor purchased to re-establish collections. More generally, there were the 90% losses sustained by school and other educational libraries, the c. 70% losses from the libraries maintained by the professions or privately and the 50-55% losses afflicting scientific book collections. Even then, it is clear that the losses involved were not completely random, since it was the works of the greatest value that tended to disappear. Also noteworthy is the fact that the Occupant was thorough in deliberately destroying library documentation, such that the losses in this respect were even more complete than those affecting books themselves. In these circumstances, the Department has done whatever it can to bring together, process and publish the documentation that does exist.

     Information on losses among items of moveable heritage has been sent in by museums, while private individuals also contributed. Employees of the Office and those working in cooperation with them searched through the different archival collections, and most especially through the Central Archive of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych), on the basis of documentation retained by the Bureau for Restitution and Reparation operating at the Ministry of Culture and Art in the years 1945-1951. Interesting materials were also obtained through a broad-based search of archives in Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Russia, as well as the United States. It was on the basis of such documents that the database on items lost during World War II was created, and catalogues of wartime losses published.

     The data brought together have allowed for the identification and subsequent reclaiming of a number of items. The Laundress by Gabriel Mets returned to Poland from the USA in 1994, while Pompeo Batoni's picture of Apollo and the Two Muses was regained from Russia in 1997. The same year brought the retrieval from the UK of the so-called "Polish" Persian carpet, while Lucas Cranach the Younger's Portrait of Philip I, Duke of Pomerania came back from Switerland in 1999. In 2001, Jacob van Walscapelle's Bouquet of Flowers was sent to Poland from the United States, while the following year saw the recovery of Georg Pencz's Holy Trinity, a Persian tapestry and the sculpture of the head of a youth attributed to Padovano. In that same year of 2002, Adriean Brouwer's Peasants in an Inn was returned from the UK, while 2003 saw the retrieval from both the UK and Finland of a helmet and fish-scale collar plate, as well as items of Hussars' armour. Woman in an Armchair by Charles-Francois Hutin was returned in 2004 from France, while a herma-shaped reliquary associated with an unknown saint returned to Poland from Switzerland. In the following year, the Laughing Man by an unknown artist was regained from Germany, along with two sheets from the Raciborz Graduale. The year 2004 also saw the Polish side submit 10 applications to the authorities of the Russian Federation for the return of items noted on a website there.