Jan Karski & Pola Nirenska Prize goes to Barbara Engelking

, 16 November 2016
The winner of this year’s Jan Karski & Pola Nirenska Prize goes to Prof. Barbara Engelking. The prize committee included Prof. Jerzy Tomaszewski, Prof. Feliks Tych, Prof. Pawel Spiewak (Director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw) and Dr Jonathan Brent (Director of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research).

Prof. Engelking has been a long-time worker of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw (PAN). In 2003, Engelking founded the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research at PAN, which she has headed since then. Prof. Engelking’s research interests include the history of the Warsaw Ghetto, Nazi occupied Warsaw and the Holocaust. She has written numerous studies related to the Holocaust, including:

‘Holocaust and Memory’ (2001);
‘Szanowny panie Gistapo.Donosy do władz niemieckich w Warszawie i okolicach, 1940-1941’ (2003);
„Prowincja noc. Życie i zagłada Żydów w dystrykcie Warszawskim” (editor and co-author, 2007);
‘Żydów łamiących prawo należy karać śmiercią! „Przestępczość” Żydów w Warszawie, 1939-1942’ (co-authored with Jan Grabowski, 2010);
‘Jest taki piękny słoneczny dzień...Losy Żydów szukających ratunku na wsi polskiej 1942-1945’ (2011);
‘Żydzi w powstańczej Warszawie’ (co-written with Dariusz Libionka, 2009).

‘The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City’, co-authored with Jacek Leociak’ highlights her entire collection of publications.

The Jan Karski & Pola Nirenska Prize was founded by Prof. Jan Karski and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Studies in 1992. The prize is awarded annually to authors of publications about Jewish life in Poland and about their contribution to Polish culture.

The main idea behind the prize is to commemorate Karski’s wife Pola Nirenska, a recognised dancer and choreographer. Of all of over seventy members of her family, she was the only to have survived the war.