Assembly of Captive European Nations (Estonian Archives in Lakewood compilation) collection

Assembly of Captive European Nations, commonly known as ACEN, was an organization founded on September 20, 1954 as a coalition of representatives from nine nations in Central and Eastern Europe under Soviet domination after the World War II. Former government and cultural leaders from Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania were members of the organization. Its main office was in New York, with branch offices in Bonn, London and Paris. The goals of the ACEN were, in their own words: to provide liberation from communist dictatorship by peaceful means, to educate public opinion on the actual situation behind the Iron Curtain, and to enlist the cooperation and assistance of governmental and non-governmental institutions. Funding was provided by the Free Europe Committee. When that organization suspended financial assistance to ACEN in January 1972 because of its own budget reductions, the offices of ACEN were closed and publication activities came to a halt. During its lifetime the organization published pamphlets and periodicals in English, as well as some of the members' languages. It also sponsored symposia and exhibitions, in particular it promoted the commemoration of Captive Nations Week. It provided background information to members of the United States Congress regarding the political and economic situations in their homelands situated behind the Iron Curtain.