Tomasz Wiśniewski, an activist who for over 30 years was involved in preservation of memory of Jewish communities of Western borders, received the POLIN Award 2018. The Award is being granted by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and this year's gala was held on Tuesday.
The jury under the leadership of the Council of the Museum head Marian Turski, nominates, awards and gives honourable mentions to people, NGOs, public and private institutions that in recent years "displayed an important, unconventional, extraordinary activity, approach, work or comment of significant influence on collective memory of the history of Polish Jews, as well as on strenghtening ties between Poles and Jews".
Tomasz Wiśniewski is the founder of the Museum of the Jews of Białystok and the Region, the author of a YouTube channel with over 2,000 films on the Jewish history of Podlasie.
He also wrote a number of book on this topic. Tomasz Wiśniewski also drew up the documentation of seven Jewish cemeteries. Furthermore, he runs bagnowka.pl website in which information about some 40,000 mainly Jewish graves is gathered.
The laureate has received a statuette sculpted by Barbara Falander and a prize of 15,000 zlotys.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 International, PAP