Mazel Tov! Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska has appointed the award-winning historian Dr. Dariusz Stola the new director of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
He will begin his five-year term on March 1.
“Congratulations and we are looking forward to seeing you at work in March,” the museum said in a Facebook post.
The appointment in a way closes a circle. Stola served as POLIN’s director from its official opening in 2014 until 2019. A contentious, year-long standoff with the then-culture minister Piotr Glinski prevented Stola from serving a second five-year term after that — Glinski refused to confirm Stola in the position, even though he had won a competition for the post.
Stola withdrew his name from consideration in February 2020, and Glinski appointed Zygmunt Stępiński, who had been serving as acting director during the standoff, in the position. Stola will now replace Stępiński, who has been director since then.
Stola is a historian of Poland under Communism, the Holocaust, Polish-Jewish relations, social memory, and international migrations in the 20th century.
Stola has published widely. He is a professor of humanities at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and member of the Centre for Migration Research at the University of Warsaw.
His awards and honors include the Irene Sendler Award, an award presented annually by Taube Philanthropies to honor people “who have been exemplary in preserving and revitalizing Poland’s Jewish heritage,” Poland’s Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland, and the Gloria Artis Silver Medal of Merit to Culture.
“We believe that the new term will be a time of further strengthening the Museum’s role as a place of dialogue, reflection and modern historical education,” the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute, one of POLIN’s co-founders. said in a Facebook post.
2 comments on “Poland: Mazel Tov! The historian Dr. Dariusz Stola is the new director of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. He was POLIN’s director in 2014-1019”
Dr Dariusz Stola
Good Luck/Mazal Tov on your reappointment from 1st March.
All jews with a Polish connection from the past look forward to your future activities.
Dr Ian Rabinowitz
6 March 2026 – I am so happy to see this! I was a U.S. Diplomat attending a conference in Budapest in 2018 on Jewish heritage where Dr. Stola spoke. In 2014, he had given me a tour of the new Polin Museum before it had officially opened. I am looking forward to another visit in a few months. I am descended from Bialystok and Grodno Jews.