Poles who preserve country’s Jewish heritage awarded

Poles involved in the preserving of Jewish heritage in Poland receive awards during two separate ceremonies in Warsaw.

Professor Ewa Geller receives the Jan Karski & Pola Nirenska Award during an award ceremony at the Jewish Historical Institute.

Geller teaches at Warsaw University’s Department of Neophilology. She earned a PhD degree in 1988 with her dissertation on Polish and East Slavic influences on the Yiddish on the center of I. B. Singer’s works. In 2007, Geller was named Associate Professor at Warsaw University. One of her works is a 17th century health vade mecum in Yiddish, which Geller found in Vienna and translated into Polish.

“I have a deep conviction that without Ewa Geller there would be no contemporary Polish Yiddish research and without Yiddish research there would be no dynamic development of Jewish studies in Poland,” Dr. Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov, a member of the jury, says during the ceremony.

Geller dedicates her award to all Polish researchers of Yiddish. “Keep it up!” she says.

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews awards its Polin Awards to local activists: Jacek Koszczan of Dukla, Robert Augustyniak of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, and Miroslaw Skrzypczyk of Lelow. A special award is bestowed on Jan Jagielski from the Jewish Historical Institute.

— JTA