On Tuesday, 9 July, a ceremony to present the Maria Wawrykowa Award to Prof Anna Wolff-Powęska was held at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. It is an honour granted by the Polish-German Textbook Commission for outstanding achievements within the Polish-German textbook dialogue. -I am enormously grateful and happy, but at the same time, a little embarrassed because I am receiving an award for what was my work, my duty. However, I do not deny that it was also a passion, a joy and gave me a lot of satisfaction." said Prof. Anna Wolff-Powęska.
A laudation in honour of Professor Anna Wolff-Powęska was given by Prof. Violetta Julkowska - Chair of the Polish-German Joint Textbook Committee.
" Professor Wolff-Powęska is, for many of us, a scientific and moral authority, not only due to her knowledge and experience but because, with great civil courage, she undertakes challenging topics which are frequently silenced and overlooked by others. We lived through years of trial when Ms Professor's texts conveyed a sense of meaning and hope, were a voice restoring significance to words and gave a rational dimension to evaluated events," said Prof. Violetta Julkowska.
Prof. Anna Wolf-Powęska is a professor of humanities, a specialist in Polish-German relations, and former director of the Western Institute in Poznań between 1990-2004. She has been awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the European Citizenship Award, Ryszard Kapuściński Award, and the KLIO Award for her book "Memory - Strain and Release. Germany vis-à-vis the Nazi past (1945-2010)". From 2007 to 2013, she was a researcher at the AMU Faculty of Political Sciences and Journalism.
The Commission was established in February 1972 within the aegis of the UNESCO Committees in both countries. It aims to increase school knowledge of the history of neighbouring countries and Polish-German relations and to raise awareness of the various types of memory in this area. The co-founder of the Commission was Maria Wawrykowa, a survivor of the Auschwitz camp and a history student after the war. From 1975, she was a professor of history at the University of Warsaw, specialising in German history and 19th-century Polish-German relations. Since she died in 2006, the Award of the Textbook Committee bears her name.
More at: https://komisja-podrecznikowa.eu/nagroda-im-marii-wawrykowej/
photo by Przemysław Stanula
