Mazel Tov to the historian Eleonora Bergman, the former director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and a pioneer in the documentation of Polish synagogues, who has been awarded the French Legion of Honor.
France’s Ambassador to Poland, Pierre Buhler, presented Dr. Bergman with the medal at a ceremony Thursday, honoring her contribution to the preservation and rediscovery of the Jewish cultural heritage of Poland. It is a heritage, said Ambassador Buhler, that is “not just Polish […] not just that of Europe […] but that of humanity.”
Dr. Bergman has written, lectured and published widely on the history and architecture of Polish synagogues. One of her major recent projects has been editing and catalogueing the “Ringelblum Archive,” a hidden cache of more than 28,000 pages of material documenting life in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, and curating a major exhibition about it.