The University Library is creating a theme program called 'Freedom and Repression', that connects to Leiden400.

The history of Europe reveals bloody wars on religion and succession, revolutionary wars and world wars. In the colonies too, as well as in other places, independence did not guarantee freedom for everyone, especially if states formed within which nations or groups felt discriminated against and so kept striving for their own specific freedom. The recently acquired collections on loan from KIT and KITLV – in which Dutch (post)colonial history is dominant – portray this notion of oppression and freedom well.