Public lecture by Prof. Jerzy Szacki in Toruń
On October 26th was held a lecture entitled “An unfulfilled »end of nations« and the social sciences”, whereas the talk that took place on October 27th at 3:15 pm was devoted to the “Problems of the modern study of nations”. The series will be concluded by a lecture devoted to “The idea of a nation between politics and culture” (October 28th, 1:00 pm).
All the lectures are held in the Elzenberg Hall of the Collegium Minus, by the Staromiejska Moat.
Jerzy Szacki– born in 1929 in Warsaw, retired Professor of the Warsaw University and member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, author of 20 books and 450 articles and translations. He conducts research focused on the history of idea and history of sociological thought.
Between 1967 and 1968 he was Deputy Dean of the Philosophy and Sociology Faculty at the Warsaw University and from 1981 to 1983 he was its Dean. Between 1968 and 1999 he was head of the Unit of History of Sociological Thought at the Institute of Sociology. He became professor in 1987.
He was lecturer at foreign universities, among them University of Minnesota,the Oxford Universityand the Vienna Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen.
In 2004 Yad Vashem honored Prof. Szacki with the “Righteous Among the Nations” title. He received this together with his mother Barbara Szacka nee Raszewska.
During the Second World War, the Szackis helped Irena Holender nee Kowalska (Century, after her second husband), who was hiding at their house together with her five-year-old daughter. The Rescued was 20 years old, had the so-called “good appearance” and was heavily pregnant.
She had been hiding in Warsaw at the house of Jerzy Szacki and his mother, on Miodowa Street from the middle of 1942 to the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. The neighbors and friends visiting the Szackis were told that she was a relative displaced from the area incorporated into the Third Reich.
After the Warsaw Uprising, Irena Holender left the town together with Barbara Szacka during the action of displacing the civilian population.
After the Second World War she was living in Łódź. In 1946 she emigrated to Israel. Since then her family has remained in contact with the Szackis.
In the second half of the nineties, the family of the Rescued started making efforts to ensure that Barbara Szacka and her son Jerzy would be honored with the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving Jews during the Second World War. They were awarded with the title in 2004.
