Finalists of 2023 POLIN Award: Mariusz Sokołowski, Wasilków and Białystok

Director of General Władysław Sikorski Primary School No. 20 in Białystok. Since 2007, he has been involved in restoring the memory of Jews in Wasilków and Białystok.

Even as a student, Mariusz co-created the Jewish Heritage Trail in Białystok and participated in tidying up the Jewish cemeteries in Krynki and Michałowo. Later, as a teacher, he engaged students in learning about the local, multicultural history through looking after the cemetery, collecting witness testimonies, making films, organizing photo exhibitions, painting murals, and playing urban games.

Mariusz also authored publications and articles dedicated to the methodology of teaching on multiculturalism. For over 10 years, he has been a member of the Forum for Dialogue network and a participant in the POLIN Museum Ambassadors program. He co-organized commemorations of the liquidation of ghettos in Wasilków and Białystok.

He is a prime-move behind and co-author of a plaque commemorating the children from the Białystok ghetto who were transported to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. In August of this year, in cooperation with the City of Białystok, he organized a ceremony during which the so-called "Stolpersteine," i.e. memorial stones were installed. They are dedicated to the murdered members of the Holocaust survivor Samuel Pisar’s family.