Council
The Board of the Institute is a decision-making, controlling and advisory body, separate from the Management Board and not subject to its control.
Piotr Cywiński
Doctor of humanities, medieval historian, graduate of Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg, the Catholic University of Lublin, and the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science. Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim since 2006.
A member of the International Auschwitz Council, and its secretary in the years 2000-2006. Co-founder and President of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, President of the Memorials Management Society, Chairperson of the Institute Council.
Between 2009-2017, he was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, which was under construction at that time. A member since 2010, and from 2011 a board member of the Maison d’Izieu Memorial in France. In 2015, he was admitted as a member of Moscow’s “Memorial”. In 2017, he was appointed Chairperson of the Programme Council of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Author of numerous books, the most noteworthy of which are: “Epitaph... and other written concerns”, five volumes of the series “Place of Truth”: “The beginning of Auschwitz in memory of the first transport of Polish political prisoners”, “The Holocaust in memory of the Sonderkommando prisoners”, “The Death March in memory of the evacuated prisoners of Auschwitz”, “Camp Dreams in memory of Auschwitz survivors” and “The camp ramp in memory of Jews deported to Auschwitz”.
Mikołaj Grynberg
Photographer, writer and psychologist. His photographs were presented all over the world. Author of the albums „Dużo kobiet” (2009), „Auschwitz – co ja tu robię?” (2009). . He published three books on the twentieth-century history of Polish Jews: Ocaleni z XX wieku (2012), Oskarżam Auschwitz. Opowieści rodzinne (2014) and Księga Wyjścia (2018). A volume of Rejwach’s short stories (2016), for which he was nominated for the “Nike” Literary Award in 2018 and Poufne (2020). For several years, he has been dedicated to the problems and history of Polish Jews in the XX century.
Agnieszka Markiewicz
Agnieszka Markiewicz former director of the Warsaw headquarters of AJC Central Europe, which encompasses seven countries: Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. She joined the AJC after eight years as Director of External Relations at the Forum for Dialogue, a Warsaw-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to Polish-Jewish dialogue and reconciliation. Previously, she also worked at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, a government agency promoting Polish culture around the world, where she was responsible, among other things, for the “Polish Year in Israel”. Previously, she cooperated with the organisers of the Gniezno Convention, a multi-religious conference devoted to Judaism, Christianity and Islam in Poland, and also worked in a large PR agency on several projects. She speaks English, French and Russian. She obtained her master’s degree in sociology at the University of Warsaw, with a thesis on the identity of the third generation of Polish Jews.
Rev. Grzegorz Michalczyk
A Roman Catholic priest, presbyter of the Warsaw Archdiocese. He was ordained a priest in 1990. He was the vicar of several parishes of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, from1998 to 2010 a university chaplain at St James the Apostle parish in Ochota district. In 2010-2012 he served as a parish priest in Laski near Warsaw. In June 2012, he was appointed by the Polish Episcopate as the national chaplain of creative circles and rector of the churches of St Andrew the Apostle and St Albert Chmielewski in Warsaw.
Deputy chairperson of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, consultant to the Episcopal Council for Culture and Protection of Cultural Heritage, member of the Episcopal Committee for Dialogue with Judaism. Between 2007 and 2012, he was a member of the International Auschwitz Council. He is a consultant and co-author of many radio and television programmes.
Piotr Paziński
Writer, philosopher, translator, chief editor of “Midrasz”, a researcher associated with the Franz Kafka University of Muri. For several years, he focused on James Joyce’s “Ulysses” (book “The Labyrinth and the Tree”, 2005, and the guide “Dublin with Ulysses”, 2008), then he published two volumes of his prose: “Pensjonat” (2009) and “Ptasie ulice” (2013), and a volume of literary essays “Rzeczywistość poprzecierana”. He writes, translates, and deals with the philosophy of Judaism and Jewish themes in literature. He is also a lecturer, photographer, editor and compiler of his books and those of others. He translated, among others, Lawrence Kushner’s “Book of Letters”, David Roskies’s essays, series of essays by Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger “Jews and Words”, and the short stories by Shmuel Josef Agnon.
Roman Rewald
He is educated in Polish and American law. In 1991, he returned to Poland and counselled the World Bank on legal issues related to housing financing in Poland and the Minister of Finance on the privatisation of the banking system. In 1992 he started his cooperation with the Weil, Gotshal & Manges law firm in Warsaw, and in 1999, he became a partner in the firm. He headed the Pro Bono committee of the Warsaw office of Weil. He is currently a retired partner of the firm.
As of 2013, he is the President of the Mediation Centre of the Lewiatan Confederation. He is also a registered arbitrator of the Court of Arbitration at the Polish Chamber of Commerce and the Lewiatan Confederation Court of Arbitration. In the years 2004 - 2010, he served as Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the institution. He participates pro bono in the activities of various organisations, among others, as President of the Ronald McDonald Foundation Council. In 2014, he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of the highest civilian awards of the Polish State, for his outstanding contribution to supporting the political transformation in Poland.
Piotr Setkiewicz
A graduate of history at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. In 1999, he defended his doctoral dissertation “IG Farben - Werk Auschwitz 1941-1945” at the University of Silesia in Katowice.
He has worked at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum since 1988, as a researcher. He has been in charge of the Research Centre since 2008. He is the editor-in-chief of Auschwitz Studies. The main subject of his research focused on issues relating to the employment of prisoners in German industries and the history of the KL Auschwitz sub-camps. He is the author and co-author of numerous scientific publications.
He has been awarded several state honours: Silver Cross of Merit, Medal for Merit to Culture “Gloria Artis”, Silver Medal “Guardian of National Memorials” and Silver Medal for Long Service.
Wojciech Soczewica
A graduate of the Institute of International Relations of the University of Warsaw and the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A former employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then at the Office of the Polish Prime Minister as Plenipotentiary for International Dialogue. Director of the International Cooperation Team at the Office of the Ombudsman between 2013 and 2015. Since November 2015, Deputy Director for International Cooperation at the Warsaw City Hall. Since January 2018, Director-General of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.
