The ceremony of handing over the “Merit for Polish Culture” award to Maciej Woźniak
On November 16, Maciej Woźniak, a resident of Otwock who has spent years collecting historical artifacts related to the pre-war Jewish community of Otwock, received the “Services to Polish Culture” award at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The ceremony was also attended by the Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Jarosław Sellin, and the Director of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, Albert Stankowski.
For many years, Maciej Woźniak has been collecting historical memorabilia related to pre-war Otwock, the city’s Jewish community, and the Otwock ghetto in 1940–1942. These include pre-war and occupation bus and train schedules, tickets for Warsaw and Otwock, old advertisements for Otwock’s stores, laundries, wholesalers, produce and medicines, bills and receipts, a Passover jar and cup. The collection also contains pharmacy signatures, kenkarts or a form of forced labor enlistment by the Germans. The collector also has the notebooks of medical student Herman Cajlingold, later a doctor of skin and venereal diseases, who lived in Warsaw at 7 Graniczna Street, apartment 95, and could be visited at telephone number 519–90. Maciej Woźniak’s entire collection of almost 500 items donated to the Warsaw Ghetto Museum. [Source: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.]