Emma Goldman, witness of the IWA founding Congress in Berlin in december 1922 A letter from Goldman to Carl Newlander, sterdam/Record/ARCH00520. Wayne Thorpe writes beautifully about this in more detail in « The Workers Themselves ». It content a fascinating account by Emma Goldman of how the Berlin police interrupted meetings and arrested several foreign anarchists at the founding of the IWA ( in December 1922. I have been planning to send you a long letter with Severin, with whom I sent fifty Kronen to be forwarded to you. I wonder, have they reached you. I wrote you only a few lines with the money. The Congress and several things that happened here made it impossible for me to write. The I am out of use of the pen and whenever I write on the typewriter for a few hours I have such terrific neck aches, so I wiated until our friend who did my book would get the time to take my letters. I suppose that you know already that the revolutionnary Syndicalist International was formed at the Congress. It has a small beginning, only about one million and a half gathered in the new organization. There were delegates from Argentine, France, Italy, Holland, Sweden Norway, Denmark, and the Spanish as well as Chili workers were represented through mandates, the delegates having been unable to get there. I am preparin a report for some of our papers which I hope to have ready next week. I will send you a copy, so will not take up the time with a detailed account now. But for the present, I am unable to be of much help to you There was some excitement at two sessions of the Congress. Socialist police came to verify all pasong us who were without papers, some of them facing a stiff sentence in Italy and Spain. The first time of the German comrades so confused the police that they managed to get rid of them. The next day the Congress moved to another hall. Unfortunately they didn't repeat the same process on the last day of the sessoin. useful content By that time the police has managed to learn of our hereabouts and came down reinforced. [...]