Ewa Geller Wins Jan Karski & Pola Nireńska Award

Krzysztof Bielawski, 16 November 2016
The Jewish Historical Institute was yesterday the venue for the presentation of the Jan Karski and Pola Nireńska Award to Prof. Ewa Geller, an outstanding Polish Yiddish scholar.

Prof. Ewa Geller is a researcher at the German Studies Institute of Warsaw University's Department of Modern Languages. Her centre of interest is Yiddish language and culture. Her research has resulted in the strengthening of the Slavo-centric theory of the rise of the Yiddish language, which had been universally considered to be a variant of the German language. Prof. Geller is the author of several books, among them "Yiddish - the Language of Polish Jews" and of numerous articles.

"Without Ewa Geller, there would be no contemporary Polish Yiddish studies and, without that, there would not be such a dynamic development in Jewish studies in Poland", commented Dr Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov.

The Award was established by Jan Karski in 1992, honouring the memory of his wife Pola Nireńska, a Holocaust survivor. The Award carries with it a prize of $5,000 and is presented to individuals in recognition of their efforts in spreading knowledge about the history and culture of Polish Jews. The Award is administered by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York and presented at the E.Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.