Event

Ewa Teleżyńska-Sawicka and Paweł Sawicki named the laureates of 2024 POLIN Award!

On October 28, the 10th anniversary of the Grand Opening of the Core Exhibition, the POLIN Award was presented for the tenth time at POLIN Museum. Ewa Teleżyńska-Sawicka and Paweł Sawicki were honored with the main Award in the competition. During the formal gala held at the Museum auditorium, the POLIN Special Award for Culture and Media was presented to Father Adam Boniecki, and the 2024 POLIN Special Award went to the Borussia Foundation from Olsztyn. The competition jury also granted two Honorable Mentions, this year awarded to Karolina Panz from Nowy Targ and Dariusz Sobczyk from Opatów.

The 2024 POLIN Award laureates, Ewa Teleżyńska-Sawicka and Paweł Sawicki, are board members of The Memory of Treblinka Foundation. For years, they have been commemorating the people murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp. They are compiling the Book of Names—an online database of victims, which already contains nearly 109,000 names, with another 20,000 waiting to be documented. On the last Saturday of each month, at the site of the former camp, they read out the names of Jews along with the stories about them they have managed to uncover. They are also building a database of escapees, a transport database, and a multilingual educational path incorporating new technologies.

This year, for the first time in the history of the competition, Director of POLIN Museum, Zygmunt Stępiński, granted a Special Award in the Culture and Media category. The Award went to Father Adam Boniecki. In his laudatory speech, the Museum Director said:

"For decades, Father Boniecki has been fostering understanding and promoting values that are often forgotten in today’s world, but which are universal and timeless. He has an extraordinary gift for building respect for others and their views. He possesses the ability to see beneath all the layers, to touch the most delicate emotional chords, and to compel us all to reflect and reconsider our own judgments. For years, he has taught us openness and empathy. He is a figure of authority with a capital ‘A’."

The competition jury also awarded two Honorable Mentions—to Karolina Panz from Nowy Targ and to Dariusz Sobczyk from Opatów.

For nearly twenty years, Karolina Panz has combined her role as a researcher of the history of Podhale Jews with efforts to restore their memory. She searches for source materials in both state and foreign archives, she meets with the Holocaust survivors and descendants of Jews from the Podhale region. She organizes meetings with the surviving residents of Nowy Targ and commemorates the Jews of Podhale on the anniversaries of their annihilation during the Holocaust.

Dariusz Sobczyk is a guardian of the memory of the Jews of Opatów. He initiated commemoration of the anniversaries to honor the victims of the Holocaust. For years, he has worked to ensure that today’s residents of Opatów do not forget their community’s legacy. On the 80th anniversary of the destruction of Opatów Jewry, he co-organized a gathering of descendants of the town’s Jewish community. He was also the prime mover behind the first exhibition of Mayer Kirshenblatt’s paintings in Opatów.

The POLIN Special Award was granted to the Borussia Foundation, which since 2006 has been restoring the memory of the multicultural history of Warmia and Mazury region and supporting grassroots activities in the areas of culture, education, and social integration. For more than a decade, the Foundation has also been developing collaboration, engaging in dialogue with neighbors, and sharing experiences related to Poland’s path to democracy. To quote Zygmunt Stępiński, Director of POLIN Museum:

"The Borussia Foundation is not indifferent to the destruction of Jewish cultural heritage, as evidenced by the rescue of a unique site—the Bet Tahara building—from oblivion and demolishion. Today, it serves as a guardian of memory of the Jews of Olsztyn, and as an agent for the common welfare."

The finalists of the 10th jubilee edition of POLIN Award competition:

  • Grażyna Barwinek, Chęciny
  • Irena French, Cieszyn
  • Beata Łuczak, Warta
  • Ewa Wroczyńska, Tykocin

All finalists received financial prizes funded by the POLIN Museum Distinguished Benefactors—Tomek Ulatowski, Odette and Nimrod S. Ariav Foundation, and Wiktor Askanas and Ewa Masny-Askanas. Gregory Jankilevitsch & the Jankilevitsch Foundation is the patron of 2024 POLIN Award competition, which is co-organized by the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland. The project is realised thanks to the funds of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The POLIN Award competition aims to promote attitudes and actions which are in line with the Museum’s mission. The laureates of the Award are social activists who preserve the memory of the history of Polish Jews and contribute to shaping a common future, mutual understanding, and respect. The POLIN Award, presented since 2015, has been awarded to 10 laureates to date, and over 65 individuals have been finalists in the competition.

 

POLIN Museum's Patron:

Orlen - mecenas muzeum

Funding:

Federalne Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych

POLIN Museum's Strategic Sponsor:

Warner Bros Discovery

POLIN Museum's Official Carrier:

Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT