Jan Jagielski, a friend and consultant of the Foundation, has been recently awarded with the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize. The ceremony of handing the prize will take place on Friday September 9th 2005 at 12.00am in the seat of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, 3/5 Tłomackie St.

The prize, established by Jan Karski in 1992 and administered by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, is awarded each year to authors of publications showing the contribution that Polish Jews made to Polish culture. Jan Jagielski was awarded for his outstanding involvement in activities aimed to protect the material traces of Jewish historical presence in Poland and for publications concerning this topic.

Jan Jagielski was born in 1937 in Toruń. He graduated from the Warsaw University with a degree in geochemistry. Since 1981 he has been actively involved in protecting places and monuments connected with culture and history of Polish Jews. It was than that he co-established the Social Committee for Protecting Cemeteries and Monuments of Jewish Culture, of which he is the President since 1994. Jan Jagielski is also the head of the Remembrance Foundation, established in 1993 on the initiative of the Polish Government. The Foundation renovates and commemorates cemeteries, synagogues and other Jewish monuments and is responsible for cultural and educational activities concerning Polish-Jewish relations. Since 1991 Jan Jagielski is an employee of the Jewish Historical Institute, where he has created a department of documentation of material traces of the historical presence of Jews in Poland. He is also known as the initiator of actions of restoring Jewish cemeteries in numerous small towns, conducted together with groups of youths from Poland and Israel.

Jan Jagielski’s publications are closely connected with his social activity. He is the author of several books on the Jewish monuments of Warsaw, the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Okopowa St. and many essays and articles published in Jewish press in Poland and abroad.

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