The Friends of Jewish Heritage in Poland NGO has presented its first “Distinguished Service” awards to Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich and heritage activist Adam Bartosz, founder and chair of the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Tarnów.
At an online event January 5, the group recognized their “decades of devoted service to the protection of Jewish heritage in Poland.”
In particular, it recognized Schudrich for “his leadership of a Jewish community challenged by the catastrophes of 20th century Jewish life in Poland and for his commitment to the protection of the abandoned and neglected Jewish cemeteries of our ancestors.”
And it recognized Bartosz “for his unparalleled leadership in the preservation and restoration of the Jewish cemetery of Tarnów and in leading care of other Jewish cemeteries in Galicia.”
Bartosz has been a driving force in the preservation of Jewish heritage sites in the southern Polish town of Tarnow for decades, starting in the communist era, and he has received a number of recognitions for his work.
An ethnographer and museologist, Bartosz has written widely about Jewish heritage and history and founded, some 35 years ago, the Committee for Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Tarnów.
From 1980-2012, he was the director of the District Museum in Tarnów and organized, in 1982, the first postwar war exhibition dedicated to Jews outside of the Jewish Historical Institute.
In 2011 he received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for actions to protect, preserve, and develop the cultural identity of national and ethnic minorities, particularly Jews and Roma.
He was already the recipient of the “Preserving Memory” award presented annually to non-Jewish Poles who preserve, protect, and promote Jewish culture and heritage, and, in 2019, of the Irena Sendler Award presented by the Taube Foundation.