The Sztetl Mszana Dolna Foundation receives the Polin 2025 Special Award

On 28 October 2025, the Polin 2025 Awards Gala was held in Warsaw.

The Sztetl Mszana Dolna Foundation was honoured with a Special Award! This is a great distinction and recognition of our efforts to preserve memory and promote dialogue.

In his laudatory speech, Director Zygmunt Stępiński listed the achievements that led to us being awarded this unique distinction. These included restoring the names of nearly a thousand Holocaust victims, renovating the Jewish cemetery, innovative educational projects aimed at building dialogue and understanding, a ‘model example’ of engaging the local community in difficult, often taboo topics, the creation of international networks connecting families of descendants, and a historic breakthrough in the field of memory and reconciliation. He emphasised the involvement of the entire two-generation family in the above activities.

It is a great honour to be among the distinguished laureates of the Polin Award. We feel proud and privileged.

Let us recall that the president of the Foundation, Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, was nominated twice (in 2017 and 2021) and awarded once (in 2021) for the Polin Award. This time, our entire family Foundation was recognised.

During her acceptance speech, our president mentioned the touching dedication by Mr Marian Turski in the copies of the Eleventh Commandment he gave to the family, expressing his gratitude for bearing the burden of memory. Among those offering congratulations was the daughter of the late Mr Marian, Joanna Turska, who emphasised that her father would have been moved by this award for our Foundation.

At the beginning of our presentation, we quoted the words of one of the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust in Mszana Dolna, Leba Stern Sonneberg: ‘I wanted to hate this town, I imagined it as a dark and cruel place. Today, I love this town full of light, brightness and kindness – thanks to Sztetl Mszana Dolna.’ These are probably the most beautiful words about our work that we can share with you.

We are grateful that the award committee also recognised this. We would like to thank everyone who supports us, especially our volunteers and grant providers who have placed their trust in us. It is thanks to them that we can do more!

After the gala, we laid the flowers we received at the Monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto.