Marian Turski, a co-founder and friend of POLIN Museum, has passed away

Marian Turski z"l has passed away. An authority on a global scale, advocate for Polish-Jewish reconciliation, journalist, historian. A Polish Jew. A person without whom our Museum would not exist, or be the kind of Museum it is—one that stands in solidarity with the minorities, the excluded, the wronged.

I knew him personally for five decades. We weren’t always on the same side of the political barricade. And yet, looking back, Marian was the sort of person Władysław Bartoszewski had in mind (they were friends, of course) when he spoke of "behaving decently." Marian himself regretted some of the choices he had made, most likely his youthful blind faith in communism, even though he remained a leftist until the end of his days. He did not erase the facts from his biography that became inconvenient over time—instead, like any respectable historian, he wanted to highlight the whole picture, not just fragments. His life—from early childhood, through miraculously surviving the Holocaust, his engagement in communism and eventual disillusionment with it, to his work for and on behalf of the Jewish community in Poland, helping to reach understanding with Poles, and striving for reconciliation with Germans—was a process in which every phase served a purpose.

It was by no means a matter of chance that Marian, a rather short and delicate man (he would have protested upon hearing these words!), grew to become an international authority for presidents, royals, as well as the most prominent intellectuals of our time (with whom he maintained contact and entirely informal relationships). Marian KNEW because he had experienced so much in his lifetime. He had the wisdom of a partaker, not a commentator; he also had a knack for thinking broadly, without imposing his own perspective. He was not only an outstanding speaker—he could also listen with great attention.

Dear Marian! Deep in mourning, Your Museum bids you farewell. You have offered us tremendous support over the years—it is hard to imagine that your finger will no longer point to the path we should follow, trustful that it is the best one for us. You’re leaving behind a great intellectual legacy. You’re leaving the Museum that you helped create and to which you devoted much of your time and energy until your final moments. The energy that seemed inexhaustible. 

Baruch dayan ha-emet, My Friend. We shall not be indifferent.

Zygmunt Stępiński

To read Marian Turski’s bio, go to Virtual Shtetl website.

You can leave your memories and condolences in the virtual book of condolences.