Research

Biograms of conference participants

Archiwalne zdjęcie przedstawia ludzi stojących na stacji kolejowej.
fot. Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

Click the name to read biogram.
 

 

 

Gershon Bacon is associate professor of Jewish history at Bar-Ilan University, where he holds the Marcell and Maria Roth Chair for the History and Culture of Polish Jewry. He is an expert in the history of East European Jewry, specializing in the social, political, and religious history of Polish Jewry in the 19th and 20th centuries. His numerous publications have appeared in leading academic journals in the United States, Europe, and Israel. Among his best known works are The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland 1916-1939 (1996) and The Jews in Poland and Russia: Bibliographical Essays (1984). He was one of the editors of Jews in Eastern Europe: the Yivo Encyclopedia (2008). He is currently completing the book The Jews of Modern Poland, to be published by the University of California Press. Professor Bacon is the editor-in-chief of the journal Gal-Ed: On the History and Culture of Polish Jewry.

 

 

Łukasz Bertram (1985), sociologist, currently working on his PhD thesis about the political elite of Polish Stalinism at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Warsaw. Among his interest are: sociology of power and elites, history of the Communist states and movements, politics of memory, Polish historical cinema, sociology of religion. Author of the book "Wyrodne dzieci nowoczesności. Indultowi tradycjonaliści katoliccy w Warszawie" [Wayward children of modernity.Indult catholic traditionalists in Warsaw] (Gdańsk 2016) and compilations Obieg NOW-ej [Circulation of the Independent Publishing House] (Warszawa 2013) and PPN. 1976–1981. Język niepodległości" [Polish Independence Agreement. 1976–1981. A language of independence] (Warszawa 2012); editor of Stanisława Sowińska’s memoirs Gorzkie lata. Z wyżyn władzy do stalinowskiego więzienia [Bitter years. From the heights of power to the Stalinist prison] (Warszawa 2017).  Member of the editorial board of Kultura Liberalna weekly and the team of the Observatory of Public Debate; editor of the online archive of Aneks quarterly.  Affiliate of the KARTA Centre in Warsaw.

 

 

Michał Bilewicz is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Warsaw, where he chairs the Center for Research on Prejudice. His research interests include reconciliation processes, hate speech, dehumanization, prejudice, and collective moral emotions. He is co-editor of a special issue of Journal of Social Issues (2013) on the consequences of genocide, and of The Psychology of Conspiracy (2015). Bilewicz initiated the Polish Prejudice Survey (2009, 2013 and 2017), the first Polish diagnostic survey on xenophobia, and has presented his reports on antisemitism to the Polish Parliament’s Ethnic Minorities Commission. Until 2015, he has served as a consultant to the Polish Ministry of Administration on the Council to Prevent Racism and Xenophobia. He is vice president of the Committee of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Forum for Dialogue.

 

 

Dariusz Brzeziński is an assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Department of Theoretical Sociology). He also lectures at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow at the Department of Anthropology of Literature and Cultural Studies and Inter-faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities. His research focuses on the contemporary social thought, sociology, anthropology and theory of culture. Recently he published a book: Zygmunt Bauman's Work in the Context of Contemporary Cultural Theory (2017, in Polish). 

 

 

Katarzyna Chmielewska is assistant professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). She is co-founder of the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies of Communism at IBL PAN and editor of the series Communism. Ideas – Discourses – Practices. Her research interests include memory studies, discourse analysis with the focus on cultural and literary contexts of the Communism in Poland, cultural research and contemporary literature as well as Holocaust studies. 

 

 

Andrzej Czyżewski is doctoral candidate at the University of Łódź (Faculty of Philosophy and History). His areas of interest include: politics of memory, oral history, history of historiography. Andrzej published a book titled Proces destalinizacji polskiej nauki historycznej w drugiej połowie lat 50. XX wieku [The Process of the De-Stalinization of Polish Historical Science in the Second Half of the 1950s], Warszawa 2008 and a number of essays: “Autoportret pokolenia ‘68 – czy samospełniająca się przepowiednia? O stosowaniu oral history i kategorii pokolenia w badaniach historycznych” [“Self-portrait of Generation ’68 – a Self-fulfilling Prediction? On the Application of Oral History and the Category of Generation in Historical Studies”], in Kwartalnik Historyczny 2016, issue 3, pp. 553–580; “Pesymizm błędnych tez, czyli co dalej? Kilka uwag o »Forum historyków dziejów najnowszych« (Warszawa 10.12.2016)” [“Pessimism of Contradictory Thesis and What’s Next? Some Comments on »Recent History Researchers Forum« (Warsaw 10.12.2016)”], in Sensus Historiae. Studia Interdyscyplinarne 2016, issue 3, pp. 265–276.

 

 

Hans-Christian Dahlmann (b. 1976), graduate in  mathematics and social sciences at the Univeristy of Münster. He is an assistant headmaster at a school in Hamburg. From 2005 to 2012 he lived in Warsaw where he conducted research on 1968 antisemitic campaign and taught at the German-Polish Willy Brandt School. His 2013 dissertation was published under the title Antisemitismus in Polen 1968. Interaktionen zwischen Partei und Gesellschaft. (Antisemitism in Poland, 1968. Interactions between party and society.) The Polish edition will be published in 2018 by the Jewish Historical Institute. His monograph „Arisierung“ und Gesellschaft in Witten (“Aryanisation” and society in Witten) was published in 2001.

 

 

Helena Datner holds a PhD in sociology; she is a historian, researcher at the Jewish Historical Institute. She is also an activist at the Jewish community in Warsaw and its former president. Dr Datner specializes in the 19th century Jewish history, history of the Jewish community in Poland after World War II as well as in a sociological research into antisemitism. She is co-author and a main scholar (until June 2014) of the postwar gallery of the POLIN Museum’s core exhibition. She is the author or co-author of: Czy Polacy są antysemitami [Are Poles Anti-Semites] (with Ireneusz Krzemiński, 1996); Żydzi w Polsce w latach 1944–1968. Wybór materiałów źródłowych [The Jews in Poland, 1944-1968. A Selection of Source Materials] (with Alina Cała, 1998); Ta i tamta strona. Żydowska inteligencja Warszawy drugiej połowy XIX wieku [This Side and the Other. Warsaw’s Jewish Intelligentsia in the Second Half of the 19th Century] (2007), Po Zagładzie. Społeczna historia szkół, domów dziecka, kół studentów w materiałach Centralnego Komitetu Żydów w Polsce [After the Holocaust. Social History of Schools, Orphanages, and Students’ Associations as Reflected in the Materials of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland] (2017)

 

 

Kamila Dąbrowska PhD holder in ethnography, specialist in anthropology of memory and Polish-Jewish relations. Author of articles and a doctoral thesis on individual and collective memory of Jews residing in the Lower Silesia region after the Second World War. Kama is closely related, both professionally and personally, with Polish Jews who left Poland as a result of the 1968 antisemitic campaign. A lecturer at the Institute of Ethnography and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Warsaw, and at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Co-editor of the volume Antropologia wobec dyskryminacji [Anthropology towards Discrimination, 2016]. Author of articles published both in Poland and abroad, i.a.: in the collected works Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship (2016) and Von Mahnstätten über zeithistorische Museen zu Orten des Massentourismus? Gedenkstätten an Orten von NS-Verbrechen in Polen und Deutschland (2016). A long-term employee of POLIN Museum, Kama supervises anti-discriminatory projects addressed to the police and manages the museum-guide team. She is also co-author of the concept of Estranged. March ’68 and Its Aftermath program and consultant of the content of the March ’68 fiftieth-anniversary commemoration program.

 

 

Jerzy Eisler is professor at the Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences and director of a branch of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. He specializes in the modern history of France and Poland. Prof. Eisler is particularly interested in biographies and in the history of political crises in the People’s Republic of Poland. He published, among others, Philippe Pétain (1991), Marzec 1968. Geneza – przebieg – konsekwencje [March 1968: Origins – Events – Aftermath] (1991), Zarys dziejów politycznych Polski 1944–1989 [Outline of Political History of Poland, 1944-1989] (1992), Grudzień 1970. Geneza – przebieg – konsekwencje [December 1970: Origins-Events-Aftermath] (2000), Polski rok 1968 [Polish Year 1968] (2006), „Polskie miesiące”, czyli kryzys(y) w PRL [„Polish Months” or Political Crises in Communist Poland] (2008), Siedmiu wspaniałych. Poczet pierwszych sekretarzy KC PZPR [The Magnificient Seven: Portraits of the Polish United Workers’ Party First Secretaries] (2014), Co nam zostało z tamtych lat. Dziedzictwo PRL [What is Left from Those Years? The Legacy of the Polish People’s Republic] (2016). In 2013, he was awarded the Commander's Cross of Polonia Restituta for outstanding achievements in researching, documenting and commemorating the history of March ’68.

 

 

Norbert Frei is professor of Modern History at Friedrich Schiller University and director of the Jena Center 20th Century History. Prof. Frei is a member of the Saxon Academy of Science. His books devoted to the history of the Third Reich and to settling accounts with the past were translated into many languages, e.g. Der Führerstaat. Nationalsozialistische Herrschaft 1933 bis 1945 [National Socialist Rule in Germany. The Führer State 1933-1945] (1987); Vergangenheitspolitik. Die Anfänge der Bundesrepublik und die NS-Vergangenheit [Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past. The Politics of Amnesty and Integration] (1997); (ed.) Hitlers Eliten nach 1945 (2001); (co-author) Das Amt und die Vergangenheit. Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (2010).

 

 

Miri Freilich is a scholar of Polish Jewry in the twentieth century. She   received her PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2000. Her study titled "Assimilation and Polonization of Jews in Poland (1919-1939)" will be published by the Yad Vashem Institute. In 2010, Dr Freilich published her book: Brothers Apart.  Her research contributed to the effort to restore the Betar movement’s place in the history of the Holocaust. In 2011, she edited a book on survivors in Israel titled The Bush Was Not Consumed.  Dr Freilich also published a book on Vitka Kempner-Kovner, a member in the underground movement in the Vilna Ghetto entitled The Partisan. She also published numerous articles. Dr Freilich worked at the Department of External Relations in Beit Berl College.   She cooperates regularly with German and Polish universities and coordinated a number of projects devoted to human rights issues.

She is a research fellow at the Strochlitz Institute of Holocaust Research at the Haifa University.

 

 

Łukasz Górniok holds a PhD in history from Umeå University, Sweden and is the coordinator of the One-Year Jewish Studies Program at Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden. His main area of research is the history of Polish Jews and Czechoslovaks in Sweden during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

 

Irena Grudzinska Gross is a literature scholar, professor at the Princeton University and at the Institute of Slavonic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She researches literary and political culture of Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Among her numerous publications are:  The Scar of Revolution: Custine, Tocqueville and the Romantic Imagination (1991), Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets (2009), Golden Harvest: Reflections on the Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust (2012, with J.T. Gross), Honor, horror i klasycy. Eseje [Honour, Horror, and the Classics: Essays] (2012). During March ’68 events, Prof. Grudzinska Gross was active in the student movement at the University of Warsaw. She continued her interrupted studies in Italy and in the United States.

 

 

Iwona Guść is a research fellow at the The Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (2018) working on the project on Holocaust diaries in a comparative and transnational perspective. Previously, she was affiliated with the Imre Kertész Kolleg in Jena and  the Lichtenberg-Kolleg in Goettingen, she also worked on the international project "The Diaries of Anne Frank. Research- Translations- The Critical Editon." Her research and teaching encompasses Holocaust literature, history of antisemitism in Poland and in the Netherlands, Polish-Dutch cultural transfers and Polish migration to the Netherlands. She graduated from the department of Dutch Studies at the University of Wrocław and was awarded her PhD degree by the department of Arts, Culture and Media Studies at the University of Groningen. Between 2010 and 2014 she worked at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam on a project devoted to the contemporary antisemitism in a global context. She also did archival research in Dutch, German and Swiss archives for external parties such as Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum (contribution to new exhibition planned for 2021), film producer Miroslaw Chojecki (audiovisual research for historical documentary) and Anne Frank Fonds in Basel.  

 

 

Dorota Jarecka is an art historian, art critic and curator based in Warsaw. Up to 2012, she was a full-time art critic at the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. She is currently working on her doctoral thesis at the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences.  In 2014, she co-authored the book Erna Rosenstein. I Can Repeat Only Unconsciously that followed the series of Rosenstein’s exhibitions at the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw (2011), the Art Stations Gallery in Poznań (2013) and the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture, branch of the National Museum in Warsaw (2014). She published Już trudno, an extended interview with the curator Anda Rottenberg. She is a member of the Citizens’ Forum for Contemporary Art and the International Association of Art Critics.

 

 

Tom Junes is a historian and holds a Ph.D. from the KU Leuven (Belgium). He is a member of the Human and Social Studies Foundation in Sofia and currently a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. As a postdoctoral researcher, he has held fellowships in Warsaw, Vienna, Budapest, Helsinki, Potsdam, Jena and Sofia. His research interests cover Eastern European history, Cold War history, and the history of youth and student movements. He is the author of Student Politics in Communist Poland: Generations of Consent and Dissent and has published widely on topics relating to student protest in Eastern Europe.

 

 

Przemysław Kaniecki is a curator at the Collection Department of POLIN Museum and Lecturer at the “Artes Liberales” Faculty, University of Warsaw. He researches Polish postwar literature (including comic books) and cinema. Author of three monographs of Tadeusz Konwicki's works (2008, 2013, 2014), and of several articles in Kwartalnik Filmowy, Konteksty and Pamiętnik Literacki. In 2011 Dr Kaniecki published an interview with Konwicki entitled W pośpiechu [In a hurry];in 2016 he edited (with Judyta Pawlak) a volume of interviews with donors of artifacts to POLIN Museum’s collection (Przynoszę rzecz, przynoszę historię[I bring a thing, I bring a story]).

 

 

Jerzy Kochanowski is professor at the Institute of History, University of Warsaw and editor-in-chief of Przegląd Historyczny. In the years 2000-2005 he worked at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw; currently he is a scholarship holder at the Imre-Kertesz-Kolleg in Jena. He specializes in the modern political and social history of Poland and Eastern Europe. He published, i.a., Węgry. Od ugody do ugody 1867-1990 (1997), W polskiej niewoli. Niemieccy jeńcy wojenni w Polsce 1945-1950 (2001), Zanim powstała NRD. Polska wobec radzieckiej strefy okupacyjnej Niemiec 1945-1949 (2008), Tylnymi drzwiami. „Czarny rynek” w Polsce 1944-1989 (2010), Rewolucja międzypaździernikowa. Polska 1956-1957 (2017).

 

 

Pavel Kolář is a graduate of the Charles University in Prague, and professor at the Faculty of History and Civilization of the European University Institute in Firenze. His areas of interest include the history of Germany as well as Central, East and Southern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, real socialism, comparative history of dictatorships and the history of violence. Prof. Kolář is currently engaged in research projects concerning the death penalty in the communist bloc and a comparative history of state violence in Europe after 1956. He published, among others, Geschichtswissenschaft in Zentraleuropa. Die Universitäten Prag, Wien und Berlin um 1900 (2008), Co byla normalizace? Studie o pozdním socialismu (2016, with M. Pullmann), Der Poststalinismus. Ideologie und Utopie einer Epoche (2016).

 

 

Justyna Koszarska-Szulc is a graduate in Polish philology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and in Interdisciplinary Studies at the “Artes Liberales” Faculty, University of Warsaw. From 2009 to 2013, she was part of the team curating the Postwar Gallery for the core exhibition of POLIN Museum. At present, Justyna works at POLIN Museum Exhibitions Department as the core exhibition content specialist. She is co-curator, with Natalia Romik, of the temporary exhibition Estranged: March ’68 and Its Aftermath. She is also co-editor of the volume Umaszynowienie (2010) and  a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Literary Research in the Polish Academy of Sciences; her thesis is devoted to dilemmas of assimilation in the works of Artur Sandauer, literary critic, translator and writer.

 

 

Andrzej Krakowski graduated from the Polish National Film School in Łódź and the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He has written, directed and/or produced over 60 films all over the world. He is also an author of several books, among them: The World Through the Eye of a Screenwriter, Pollywood and Pollywood II. Professor Krakowski received Ph.D. in Film Art from Polish National Film School and was one of the founders of the highly-regarded SUNY-Purchase film conservatory. He is the former Chair of the Media & Communication Arts Department at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he currently teaches critical studies, screenwriting, film directing and production.

 

 

Ireneusz Krzemiński is professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, where he heads the Faculty of Theories of Social Change and the Centre for Research in Solidarity and Social Movements. He is member of the board of the Polish branch of PEN Club, as the Board of the European Solidarity Center in Gdańsk. His research interests include, among others, social movements, and processes occurring in democratic societies, antisemitism and national stereotypes, as well as methodology of social science. He is author of, i.a., Czy Polacy są antysemitami? (1996), Co się dzieje między ludźmi? (1999), Antysemityzm w Polsce i na Ukrainie (2004), Solidarność: doświadczenie i pamięć (2010), Wielka transformacja: zmiany ustroju w Polsce po 1989 (2011), Solidarność. Niespełniony projekt polskiej demokracji (2013), Żydzi – problem prawdziwego Polaka (2015), Pamięć o wielkiej zmianie. Solidarność Rolników Indywidualnych a polska transformacja (2017).

 

 

Marcin Kula is a historian and sociologist, professor emeritus of the Warsaw University, lecturer at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw. His study area encompasses history of Latin America and contemporary political and social history of Poland, memory studies, historical sociology and anthropology. He authored over 30 books, i.a. Historia Brazylii [History of Brazil] (1987), Narodowe i rewolucyjne [Nationalist and Revolutionary] (1991), Marzec 1968. Trzydzieści lat później [March 1968: Thirty Years Later] (1998), Nośniki pamięci historycznej [Carriers of Historical memory] (2002), Religiopodobny komunizm [Religion-like Communism] (2003), Krótki raport o użytkowaniu historii [A Short Report on the Usage of History] (2004), Uparta sprawa: żydowska? polska? ludzka? [Persistent Issue: Polish? Jewish? Human?] (2004), O co chodzi w historii? [What is History About?] (2008), Anatomia rewolucji narodowej (Boliwia w XX wieku) [Anatomy of National Revolution (Bolivia in 20th Century)] (2009), Naród, historia… i dużo kłopotów [Nation, History… and Lots of Trouble] (2011), Kartki z socjologii historycznej [Pages from Historical Sociology] (2014).

 

 

Józef Markiewicz ethnologist and cultural anthropologist, graduate of Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology University of Warsaw. He conducted various ethnographical fieldwork on eastern borderlands of European Union (Ukraine, Moldova, Russian Federation) dealing with local cultures of memory as well transnational labor migrations in the context of national-state identity discourse. Participant and coordinator of research projects based on oral history method within Geschichtswerkstatt EUROPA program (e. g “White Karelian remembrance about postwar climate changes”, “Jewish and Roma memory of Transnistria”). Currently Józef works as an oral history specialist at the Digital Collection Department of POLIN Museum and is responsible for recording personal narratives about the post-1968 Jewish emigration from Poland.

 

 

Małgorzata Melchior is a sociologist, professor at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the University of Warsaw and professor emeritus of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research at the Polish Academy of Science. Her research interests include identity problems, social minorities issues and Holocaust Studies. Among her numerous publications are two books: Społeczna tożsamość jednostki (w świetle wywiadów z Polakami pochodzenia żydowskiego urodzonymi w latach 1944-1955)” [Social identity of the individual (in the light of the interviews with Poles of Jewish origin born in 1944-55)] (1990), Zagłada a tożsamość. Polscy Żydzi ocaleni „na aryjskich papierach”. Analiza doświadczenia biograficznego [The Holocaust and Identity. Polish Jews Survived on <Aryan Papers>. Analysis of the Biographical Experience] (2004); and shorter texts and articles, among others: “Facing Antisemitism in Poland during the Second World War and in March 1968”, [in:] POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry, Volume 21, 2008; „Threat of Extermination in Biographical Experience of the Holocaust Survivors”, [in:] Polish Sociological Review, No. 1, 2002; “The Holocaust and Polish-Jewish Relations in Sociological Studies”; [in:] Holocaust. Studies and Materials, Journal of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, 2008; „The Place of the Holocaust in the Consciousness of Polish Jews”, [in] Jewish Presence in Abscence. The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland 1944-2010, eds. F. Tych,M. Adamczyk-Garbowska, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2014; „What Does the Holocaust Tell Sociologists? Identity as a Stigma”, [in:] Thinking after the Holocaust. Voices from Poland, ed. S. Rejak (2008).

 

 

Mikhail Mitsel is a historian and archivist born in 1953. He graduated from Lvov State University. In the 1980s, he worked at the Kiev Fortress museum as a researcher and tour guide. In the 1990s, he was a researcher at the Institute for Jewish Studies in Kiev. In 1998, he moved to the USA. He is an archivist, specializing in Eastern European Jewish history, at the Archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in New York. Mikhail is author of many articles and books in English, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish including “The Final Chapter”: Agro-Joint in the Years of the Great Terror (2012), Jews of Ukraine in 1943-1953: A Documented Study (2004), Jewish Religious Communities in Ukraine: Kiev, Lvov: 1945-1981 (1998), List of the 1863 Insurgents Jailed in the Kiev Fortress (1995).

 

 

Jan Olaszek is a senior specialist at the Historical Research Office at the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. In 2016, at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he defended his PhD dissertation titled: “The functioning of the main information magazines of underground "Solidarity" in Warsaw in 1981-1989”. He primarily deals with the history of opposition movements in the Polish People's Republic and other Soviet bloc countries, and the history of the samizdat. He was a scholar of the Kersten Foundation and the Foundation for Polish Science, winner of the first prize in the European Solidarity Center competition for the best master thesis on opposition in the People's Republic of Poland and the winner of the "Polityka" Historical Prize. He also received nominations to a number of other awards. He is author of two monographs (“Few Extremists". Underground Solidarity in Martial Law Propaganda and Revolution of duplicators. Independent publishing movement in Poland 1976-1989) and one popular book (Against the Polish People's Republic. Essays from the history of the democratic opposition), co-author of a monograph (Solidarity" of Farmers 1980-1989), editor of two source editions and co-editor of seven volumes of studies.

 

 

Burkhard Olschowsky is a research associate at the Federal Institute of Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe. He holds a PhD from the Humboldt University of Berlin (2002) and is teaching German and East European history at the University of Oldenburg. He is the collaborator of the “European Network Remembrance and Solidarity” (from 2010 to 2013 he had been working at the Warsaw office). His research interests include comparative social history, East and Central European history, politics of history and historical memory.

 

 

Piotr Osęka is a historian and journalist, professor at the Institute of Political Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He researched modern social and political history of Poland, history of the security apparatus and of the twentieth century propaganda. He published, among others, Syjoniści, inspiratorzy, wichrzyciele. Obraz wroga w propagandzie Marca 1968 (1999), Rytuały stalinizmu. Święta i uroczystości rocznicowe w Polsce 1944-1956 (2006), Marzec ’68 (2008), Mydlenie oczu. Przypadki propagandy w Polsce (2010), My, ludzie z Marca. Autoportret pokolenia’68 (2015). In 2013, Prof. Osęka was awarded Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for his achievements in researching, documenting and commemorating the history of March ’68.

 

 

Krzysztof Persak is a senior historian at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and research fellow at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 2000-2016, Dr Persak was affiliated with the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw. Author and co-editor of nineteen monographs, edited volumes and documentary collections on the communist power system in Poland, communist state security service, Polish-Soviet relations, history of scouting, and Polish-Jewish relations. He published i.a. Odrodzenie harcerstwa w 1956 roku [Rebirth of the Scouting Movement in Poland in 1956] (1996), Wokół Jedwabnego [Jedwabne and Beyond] (2002, with P. Machcewicz), A Handbook of the Communist Security Apparatus in East Central Europe, 1944–1989 (2005, with Ł. Kamiński), Sprawa Henryka Hollanda [Henryk Holland Affair] (2006). Dr Persak received fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, Foundation for Polish Science and the Imre Kertész Kolleg in Jena.

 

 

Dragoş Petrescu is Professor of Comparative Politics and Recent History in the Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest and Chairman of the Board of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) in Bucharest. His research interests are related to the comparative analysis of the communist regimes in East-Central Europe and the post-1989 transitions to democracy in the region, with a special emphasis on transitional justice and institutionalization of memory. Among many others, he is the author of Entangled Revolutions: The Breakdown of the Communist Regimes in East-Central Europe (2014) and Explaining the Romanian Revolution of 1989: Culture, Structure, and Contingency (2010), and co-editor of Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian Case Studies (2001).

 

 

Renata Piątkowska is an art historian, graduate of the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw. From 1999, she has worked at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, currently as the Chief Curator of the Collection. For many years now she has been dealing with art and culture of Polish Jews. Among her numerous publications are: “Między «Ziemiańską» a Montparnassem. Roman Kramsztyk” [Between Ziemiańska Café and Montparnass. Roman Kramsztyk”, 2004]. Before joining the POLIN Museum team, she worked at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, where she curated many exhibitions: “The work and life of Maurycy Trębacz 1861-1941” (1993); “Roman Kramsztyk (1885-1942)” (1997); “Our Elders Brothers”. Paintings, Graphic Art and Drawings from the collection of the Jewish Historical Institute” (2001) among others.

 

 

Maciej Pietrzak is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Film, Media and Audiovisual Arts at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He is working on a doctoral thesis on depiction of March ‘68 and its aftermath in the Polish cinema. He holds a scholarship from the Polish Intercultural Youth Encounters Program run by POLIN Museum within which he studied at the Tel Aviv University. His main research interests focus on Jewish and Middle-Eastern issues. His articles on cinematic representation of March 1968 include: „Wygnanie ocalonych. Doświadczanie emigracji pomarcowej w filmach Mariana Marzyńskiego i Leszka Leo Kantora” [„The exile of survivors. The experience of post-March '68 emigration in films of Marian Marzyński and Leszek Leo Kantor”], in Images no. 29 (2017); „Przełamując tabu. O najwcześniejszych filmowych echach wydarzeń marcowych”, [„Breaking the taboo. The earliest cinematic echoes of the March 1968 experience”], in Images no.27, (2016).

 

 

Piotr Pęziński is a journalist and historian, graduate of the Institute of History of the University of Warsaw. He was awarded the First Prize at the Jewish Historical Institute in the 5th Majer Balaban Competition for the best master thesis devoted to Jewish subjects (2012). He is the author of Na rozdrożu. Młodzież żydowska w PRL 1956–1968 [At the Crossroads. Jewish youth in PRL 1956-68] (2014). He publishes in Słowo Żydowskie, Plotkies, Polityka, Rzeczpospolita. His interests include the history of the Jewish community in Poland and March '68 emigration.

 

 

Anat Plocker specializes in modern eastern European history. She earned her PhD in history from Stanford University and her dissertation dealt with the March 1968 Events in Poland. She was a fellow at the Yale University and later at the University of Haifa, where she taught various courses in the field of European history. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at Stockton University’s program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Her research deals with the relationship between communist regimes and Jewish communities in the post-1945 Eastern Europe and on the ideology and politics of Holocaust commemoration. Dr. Plocker has published her work in leading journals in the field.

 

 

Alicja Podbielska is a PhD Candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. In her dissertation on The Memory of Rescue in Poland she examines when, how, and why Poles who had rescued Jews from the Holocaust were officially designated national heroes. She earned her MA in literature studies from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Prior to her doctoral studies, Alicja worked at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. She was granted fellowships from the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies in Vienna, Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) in Munich. Her research interests include Polish-Jewish relations, collective memory, public history, and Holocaust literature.

 

 

Antony Polonsky is Professor Emeritus at Brandeis University and the chief historian of POLIN Museum. He is founder and editor-in-chief of the yearbook POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry. Prof. Polonsky’s research interests include history of Poland and of Jews in Eastern Europe. He published, among others, Politics in Independent Poland (1972), The Little Dictators. A History of Eastern Europe since 1918 (1975), The Great Powers and the Polish Question 1941-1945 (1976) The History of Poland since 1863 (1981), ‘My Brother’s Keeper?’ Recent Polish Debates about the Holocaust (1990), The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (2004, with J. Michlic). Prof. Polonsky’s most important publication is The Jews in Poland-Lithuania and Russia 1350 to the present day (2009-2012). Its abbreviated version was published under the title History of Jews in Poland and Russia [Dzieje Żydów w Polsce i Rosji] (2015).

 

 

Joachim von Puttkamer is a professor at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany. He is one of the directors of the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena. His recent publications include "Ostmitteleuropa im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert” (2010); "Schleichwege. Inoffizielle Begegnungen sozialistischer Staatsbürger zwischen 1956 und 1989" (co-edited with Włodzimierz Borodziej and Jerzy Kochanowski, 2010), "Legacies of Violence. Eastern Europe's First World War" (2014) and "1956. Nieco inne spojrzenie/1956. Eine (etwas) andere Perspektive" (co-edited with Jerzy Kochanowski, 2016). He is teaching East European history.

 

 

André Roosen holds an MA in Dutch language and a BA in business economics. He works as a financial controller of sponsored research projects at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School for Regional, Transnational and European Studies (ARTES) of the University of Amsterdam, working on a dissertation entitled Dutch diplomatic representation of Israeli interests in the Soviet Union (1953) and Poland (1967-1990). He co-edited the first Dutch translation of the letters of Bruno Schulz in 2017. His research interests are: the history of Polish Jews, the representations of the Holocaust in graphic novels, and the work, life and afterlife of Bruno Schulz.

 

 

Natalia Romik is a graduate in political science, and a lover of architecture, designer, artist, member of the Association of Polish Architects. Romik is a doctoral candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, and a London Arts and Humanities Partnership scholarship holder. Her main areas of interest, both artistic and academic, are connection between art and architecture, (post)Jewish architecture of memory, and ephemeral actions. Romik has been awarded numerous grants, including the 2012 Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland for the project Jewish Architecture of (Non-)Memory in Silesia. From 2007 to 2014, she cooperated with the Nizio Design studio and was a consultant for, among others, the POLIN Museum core exhibition design, co-author of the revitalization of a synagogue in Chmielnik and of labs for the Zoom on Nature project in Janów Lubelski. Romik is a member of the Senna architecture collective, responsible for designs including the exhibition at the Museum of Jews in Upper Silesia. Co-curator with Justyna Koszarska-Szulc of the temporary exhibition Estranged: March ’68 and Its Aftermath.

 

 

Rachel Rothstein holds a PhD in History from the University of Florida. She is currently revising her dissertation entitled, "Small Numbers, Big Presence:’ Poland, the U.S., and the Power of Jewishness since 1968," for publication. Her research interests include post-war Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe, transnational Jewish connections, and postwar American Jewry. Rachel has published on the Jewish Flying University (Żydowski Uniwersytet Latający) and American Jewish reactions to the 1968 Polish Anti-Zionist campaign.  She currently teaches Modern Jewish History at the Weber School in Atlanta, GA and is developing a new curriculum for Jewish high school students traveling to Poland.

 

 

Martyna Rusiniak-Karwat is a political scientist and historian. She works as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw) and Senior Specialist in Digital Collections and Resource Center at POLIN Museum. She is author of many articles and several books on Polish Jewry, among them: Obóz zagłady Treblinka II w pamięci społecznej. 1943–1989 [Treblinka Death Camp II in Social Memory. 1943–1989], Warsaw 2008; Nowe życie na zgliszczach. Bund w Polsce w latach 1944–1949 [New Life Amongst the Rubble. The Bund in Poland in the Years 1944–1949], Warsaw 2016; Archiwum Ringelbluma. Konspiracyjne Archiwum Getta Warszawy [The Ringelblum Archive. Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto], vol. 16: Prasa getta warszawskiego: Bund i Cukunft [Warsaw Ghetto underground press: Bund and Tsukunft] (as a co-editor) Warsaw 2016. Recently, Dr Rusiniak-Karwat published Marek Edelman’s Nieznane zapiski o getcie warszawskim [Unknown Memoirs on the Warsaw Ghetto], Warsaw 2017. Her main research interests include: contemporary Jewish history, political doctrines of the Jewish left, political historiography and ethnic minorities.

 

 

Jaff Schatz emigrated from Poland after March 1968. He is a sociologist and historian (e.g. the author of The Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Communists of Poland, UCP 1991), founder and head of the Institute for Jewish Culture (Lund, Sweden, 1974-2003) and consultant/advisor for organizations and enterprises. Dr Schatz defended his PhD dissertation at the Lund University, Sweden in 1990.

 

 

Michał Siermiński is a philosopher and a mathematician, associated with the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Warsaw, a member of the editorial team of Bez Dogmatu. His academic research concerns the history of Polish Leftist opposition after 1956 and the Solidarity movement (1980-1981). He publishes also on social philosophy, the Holocaust memory and history of Polish-Jewish relations. He published Dekada przełomu. Polska lewica opozycyjna 1968-1980. Od demokracji robotniczej do narodowego paternalizmu [The Decade of Breakthrough. Polish Opposition Left 1968-1980. From the Workers’ Democracy to the National Paternalism] (2016).

 

 

Michał Sobelman graduated in history and Slavonic studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the years 1981-1992 he worked as an academic there. In 1987, he was granted a UNESCO scholarship at the Silesian University. In the years 1988-1993 he was affiliated with the Yad Vashem Institute. Since 1993 Mr Sobelman has served as press officer of the Israeli Embassy in Poland. In the years 1994-2002 he cooperated with the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimones. Since 2000, he has lectured at the Post-Diploma Studies at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. He has published widely on Polish-Jewish relations; his works appeared, i.a., in Israel, Italy and Poland. He is also author of over a dozen scripts for documentary films. Mr Sobelman translates contemporary literature from Hebrew into Polish. He emigrated to Israel in 1969.

 

 

Stephan Stach is a historian at the Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. His current research project focuses on the role of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw for the construction of Holocaust memory during the Cold War. His research interests cover Polish-Jewish relations in the 20th century, national minorities in Eastern Europe and the history of East-Central-European Dissent. His PhD dissertation, completed in 2014, concerned concepts and practices for the inclusion of national minorities in interwar Poland. He also co-directed a research project on historical debates of East Central European Dissidents. Among his publications are Religion in the Mirror of Law. Eastern European Perspectives from the Early Modern Period to 1939. (2016, co-edited with Y. Kleinmann & T. Wilson) and “’The spirit of the time left its stamp on the work…’ Writing the History of the Shoah at the Jewish Historical Institute in Stalinist Poland`”, in: Remembrance and Solidarity. Studies in 20th Century European History, Issue 5 (2016).

 

 

Marcin Starnawski is Assistant Professor at the University of Lower Silesia’s Faculty of Education, a sociologist and educator. He is the author of Socjalizacja i tożsamość żydowska w Polsce powojennej. Narracje emigrantów z pokolenia Marca ’68 [Socialization and Jewish Identity in Post-War Poland: Narratives of émigrés of the March ’68 Generation, 2016]. He co-authored and co-edited books: Hate Crime Monitoring and Victim Assistance in Poland and Germany (2009), Educational Change and Challenges in Poland and the Czech Republic after 1989 (2013), Studies on Ideology and Education (in Polish, 2012) as well as reports on hate-motivated violence in Wrocław (2012) and discrimination in Polish schools (2015). Dr Starnawski translated into Polish works by, among others, Immanuel Wallerstein and Eric Hobsbawm.

 

 

Monika Stępień is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Hebrew Studies, University of Warsaw. She was awarded a research grant funded by the National Science Centre (Poland) and is currently conducting a project entitled “Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków – Post-war Polish Cities as Depicted in Jewish Personal Accounts”. She obtained her PhD from the Jagiellonian University for her dissertation entitled “The City Recounted: The Image of Post-war Kraków in Selected Works of Jewish Literature”. The dissertation was awarded First Honorable Mention in the sixth edition of the Majer Bałaban Contest (2014) – a contest held by Warsaw’s Jewish Historical Institute for the best Master’s and Doctoral theses on the Jews and Israel. Dr Stępień’s work has been published in POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry and in Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia. She co-authored the book We Were, We Are, We Will Be: The Jewish Community of Krakow After 1945 (Kraków 2015). She also works at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków. She was a member of the curatorial team of the exhibition The Girl from the Diary. Searching for Rywka from the Łódź Ghetto.

 

 

Dariusz Stola, director of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, is a historian, professor at the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. He has published ten books and more than a hundred articles on the history Polish-Jewish relations, the communist regime in Poland and on international migrations in the 20th century, including: Nadzieja i zagłada [Hope and Destruction] (1995); Kampania antysyjonistyczna w Polsce 1967-1968 [“Anti-Zionist” Campaign in Poland, 1967-1968] (2000); Kraj bez wyjścia? Migracje z Polski 1948-1989 [A Country without an Exit? Migrations from Poland, 1948-1989] (2010); Patterns of Migration in Central Europe (2001, with C. Wallace); PRL. Trwanie i zmiana [Polish Peoples’ Republic: Stability and Change] (2003, with M. Zaremba); PZPR jako machina władzy [Polish United Workers’ Party as the Machine of Power] (2012, with K. Persak), and three history textbooks for secondary schools. His books received numerous awards. Professor Stola has lectured in history and served on advisory boards of several Polish and international institutions and journals. For his contribution to research on Poland’s modern history he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

 

 

Jan Axel Stoltz has a degree in social work and a second one in education from Lund University. Having studied as an exchange student in Poland in the early 1960s, he worked as a Polish-Swedish translator at the reception center Örenäs in 1969 and 1970. From 1970 to 1984 he was employed as a social worker for the Polish-Jewish and other refugees in Lund. From 1985, he was a high school teacher for 20 years. In the 1980s he was the co-founder and the first president of the Swedish Solidarity Support Organization and the secretary of the international Conference of Solidarity Support Organizations (CSSO). Occasionally, since 1991 he arranges and leads study tours to Poland for Swedish teachers and students.

 

 

Bożena Szaynok – Assistant Professor at the University of Wrocław. Her research concerns Polish history after WWII (the Jewish community in Poland after the Holocaust, Polish – Jewish relation in the communist Poland, the attitude of the Catholic Church towards the Jewish issue) as well as the diplomatic issues (relations between Poland and Israel). She is author of: Pogrom of the Jews in Kielce 4 VII 1946 (Warsaw 1992); The Jewish community in Lower Silesia 1945-1950 (Wrocław 2000), With History and Moscow in the background. Poland –Israel 1944-1968 (Warsaw 2012), Shepherd of the souls. The interview with father Ludwik Wisniewski, OP (Krakow 2012),  Interview with  Wladyslaw Bartoszewski about his book: Poles, Jews, Occupation (Kraków 2016) as well as numerous articles on Polish-Jewish relations, Polish-Israeli relations and history of Jews in Poland after 1945 publishing in Polish, English and Hebrew. She was a member of the Council of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (2009-2016).

 

 

Krzysztof Świrek – sociologist specializing in sociological theory and modern political thought. He obtained his Ph.D. from University of Warsaw in 2016; his doctoral thesis was devoted to the theories of ideology inspired by Marxism and psychoanalysis. Dr Świrek teaches history of sociological theory and social philosophy at the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw. His scholarly interests focus on various strands of critical social theory. His recent publications include: “Political fantasy as a form of ideology – the Polish case” in The Interlocutor. Journal of the Warsaw School of the History of Ideas 1/2017), “Getting Hands Dirty: on Adam Schaff's Political Writings” in Hybris. Revista de Filosofía 37/2017, “Fredric Jameson and Cultural Revolutions of Capitalism” in Polish, Studia Socjologiczne, 2/2016) and “VHS and the Transitional Phase of Polish Capitalism” in View. Theories and Practices of Visual Culture, 11/2015.

 

 

David Tompkins is an Associate Professor of history and Director of European Studies at Carleton College in Minnesota. He specializes in the history of modern Central Europe, and is particularly interested in the relationship between culture and politics. His book Composing the Party Line: Music and Politics in Early Cold War Poland and East Germany appeared with Purdue University Press in 2013, and he has published articles in journals including German History, The Polish Review, and Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, and in numerous edited volumes. His latest project examines images of the other in the Soviet bloc, and is currently supported by an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship.

 

 

Michał Trębacz is head of the Research Department at POLIN Museum. He obtained his PhD in history, and his research interests include twentieth-century socio-political history, in particular Jewish history and biographical studies. Dr Trębacz was granted a number of international scholarships to further research the interwar history and the history of WW2. He published a book titled: Izrael Lichtenstein (1883-1933). Biografia żydowskiego socjalisty, and edited two volumes: Zagłada Żydów na polskiej prowincji and Józef Zelkowicz. Notatki z getta łódzkiego (1941-1944).

 

 

Karolina Wigura runs an Observatory of Public Debate at the Polish political and cultural weekly Kultura Liberalna. She studied sociology, history of ideas and political science at the University of Warsaw and the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. In 2008, she won the prestigious Grand Press award for her interview with Jürgen Habermas. Dr Wigura is the author of Wina narodów. Przebaczenie jako strategia prowadzenia polityki [Guilt of Nations. Forgiveness as a Political Strategy], for which she won the Józef Tischner Award for best essay in 2011. She is a Marshall Memorial Fellowship Alumni and a former visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

 

 

Marcin Zaremba is a historian, sociologist and journalist. He teaches at the Institute of History, University of Warsaw. He is secretary of the Polityka Award in History. Dr Zaremba deals with the most recent social and political history of Poland. He published, i.a., Marzec 1968. Trzydzieści lat później (1998, with M. Kula and P. Osęka), Komunizm, legitymizacja, nacjonalizm. Nacjonalistyczna legitymizacja władzy komunistycznej w Polsce (2001), PRL. Trwanie i zmiana (2003, with D. Stola), Wizyta Jana Pawła II w Polsce 1979: dokumenty KC PZPR i MSW (2005, with A. Friszke), Rozmowy na Zawracie: taktyka walki z opozycją demokratyczną: październik 1976 – grudzień 1979 (2008, with A. Friszke). Dr Zaremba is a laureate of the Jerzy Turowicz Award and Kazimierz Moczarski Historical Award for his book titled Wielka trwoga: Polska 1944–1947: ludowa reakcja na kryzys (2012).