POLAND: POLIN awards 2025, presented by the POLIN Museum in Warsaw – Mazel tov to winner Marek Chmielewski and to the Honorable Mentions and Special Awards grantees.

Mazel tov to the recipients of the 2025 POLIN awards, granted annually by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw to people “actively working to protect the memory of the history of Polish Jews.”  

The awards — the 11th edition of the honors — were announced at a gala event Tuesday night (October 28).

This year’s winner is Marek Chmielewski, the village administrator (sołtys) of the little town of Orla, in eastern Poland. A member of the Forum for Dialogue network, he has been active for many years spearheading the restoration of Jewish memory in Orla and in particular the preservation and development of the historic synagogue, which dates from the second quarter of the 17th century.

Thanks for his efforts, the synagogue, which is already used for cultural events, was placed on Europa Nostra’s 2025 list of “Seven Most Endangered Monuments and Cultural Heritage Objects in Europe” and will receive financial and expert support from the European Investment Bank for conservation work. Chmielewski initiated the “Despite Everything – Szalom” Festival in 2023, and has worked for years to arrange care and maintenance of Orla’s Jewish cemetery. 

The main POLIN Award is a competition, with other special awards sometimes granted.

The 2025 POLIN Special Award went to The Mszana Dolna Shtetl Foundation, also a member of the Forum for Dialogue, which cares for the Jewish cemetery and other Jewish heritage and memory in the small town of Mszana Dolna in southern Poland. 

In addition, for the second time since the awards were established, a Special Prize for Culture and Media was awarded. It went to the Krakow-based Austeria Publishing House, which specializes in Jewish authors and topics as well as translations, and the Czarne publishing house, which focuses on reportage and non-fiction as well as foreign literature in Polish translation.

Honorable mentions went to Kamil Mrozowicz from Jedwabne and Marek Kołcon from Zamość.

Read the announcement on the POLIN web site