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Monika Krawczyk appointed director of the JHI, photo by Danuta Matloch / www.gov.pl/kultura

Monika Krawczyk becomes the successor of prof. Paweł Śpiewak, who served as the Director of the JHI from 2011 to 2020. On behalf of the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sport, Jarosław Sellin, the secretary of state at the Ministry, presented the new director.

– We will implement a very ambitious program that focuses on dialogue and discovering of the many threads of the history of Polish Jews, which may not have been thoroughly researched yet. Of course, we will not neglect the issues that interest everyone the most, i.e. the history of World War II – said Monika Krawczyk. As she added, the Jewish Historical Institute will undertake more extensive research on topics such as the spirituality of Polish Jews.

The new director of the Jewish Historical Institute is an advocate, in the years 2004-2019 was the Managing Director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage. From January to September 2019, she was the Chair of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, currently a member of the Union's Board. She conducted a number of projects concerning Polish-Jewish relations and the protection of Jewish heritage. In 2015-2017, she was a member of the Consultative Council at the Mazowieckie Provincial Conservator of Monuments, in 2014-2018 she participated in the work of the Social Council at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Monika Krawczyk was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for her contribution to the protection of cultural heritage (2010) and the Honorary Medal "Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto" of the Association of Jewish Combatants and Victims of the Second World War – for cultivating the memory of Jewish ghetto fighters and victims of the Holocaust (2011). In 2019, she received the annual Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.