Museum Council
Based on the Act of 21 November 1996 on Museums, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage appointed the members of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum Council.
Pursuant to the Act, the Museum Council supervises the Museum’s fulfilment of its duties as regards the collections and society; assesses, on the basis of the annual report submitted by the Museum’s Director, the activities of the Museum and gives its opinion on the annual activity plan submitted by the Director; in the event of announcing a competition for the position of Director, designates two additional members to the competition committee. The term of office of the members of the Council is four years.
Warsaw Ghetto Museum Council (2023-2027)
In the years 2023 – 2027 the following persons make up the committee:
Colette Avital – Israeli diplomat and politician of Romanian origin, Holocaust survivor. From 1999 to 2009, she served in the Knesset as a member of the Labour Party and One Israel. Throughout her long diplomatic career, Ms Avital was, among others, consul general of the Israeli representation in New York. As a member of parliament, she led an investigation to identify properties within Israel belonging to European Jews, victims of the Holocaust. The Centre for Holocaust Survivor Organisations in Israel, which she runs, represents 50 organisations providing support to Survivors.
James Bulgin – Dr James Bulgin is Director of Public History at Imperial War Museums, having previously been Director of Content at the award-winning new Holocaust Gallery. His doctoral thesis explored issues of apocalyptic memory in Holocaust and Cold War history. James Bulgin has spoken at conferences in Germany, the USA, Israel and Poland. He can also be seen in IWM online content talking about various aspects of 20th century conflict. He is the author of The Holocaust and presenter of How the Holocaust Began for the BBC. He has also appeared in the BBC series Rise of the Nazis ( in which he serves as a historical advisor), D-Day: The Unheard Tapes and the Channel 5 series Secrets of the Imperial War Museum.
Dr Dariusz Libionka – Graduate of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and the School of Social Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has worked at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the Laboratory of Polish History after 1945. In 1998 he obtained his doctoral degree on the basis of the thesis: The Jewish Question in the Polish Catholic Press in the 1930s under the supervision of Professor Krystyna Kersten. In 2000-2007, he was an employee of the Public Education Office of the Institute of National Remembrance in Lublin. Since 2007 he has been the head of the Scientific Department of the State Museum at Majdanek. He is the editor-in-chief of the academic yearbook of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences Zagłada Żydów. Studies and Materials, as well as the editor-in-chief of the series Zeszyty Majdanka published at the State Museum at Majdanek. His field of interest is Jewish issues, especially Polish-Jewish relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. He deals with the attitudes of Poles towards the Holocaust and the history of the Polish People’s Republic. His publications also examine the attitudes of the Church, the Catholic press and the clergy towards the extermination of Jews.
Artur Hofman – President of the Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland, actor, director and journalist, activist of the Jewish community in Poland, editor-in-chief of Słowo Żydowskie. From 1977 to 1982 he was an adept and from 1982 to 1991 an actor at the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. From 1993 to 1998 he worked as a director of the Opera and Operetta in Szczecin. Since 2003 he has been a director at the Jewish Theatre. For years, he has been involved in Polish-Jewish dialogue and the cultivation of the memory of the martyrdom and struggle of Polish Jews.
Dr Edward Kopówka –Born in 1963, has lived in Siedlce since 1970. In 2009, he obtained his PhD at the Podlasie Academy in Siedlce (now University of Natural Sciences and Humanities), defending his dissertation on Jews in Siedlce in the 19th-20th century. He expanded his knowledge during courses at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the Goethe Institut in Berlin. Since 1996 he has worked as the head of the Treblinka Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom, and since July 2018 he has been appointed director of the Treblinka Museum. German Nazi extermination and labour camp (1941-1944). By order of President Andrzej Duda on 11 May 2017 he was awarded the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. In 2011 he was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of the Republic of Poland Bronisław Komorowski. In 2012, he was awarded the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Medal by the Association of Jewish War Veterans and Victims of World War II in recognition of cultivating historical truth about Polish-Jewish relations, especially during the Holocaust. In the same year, he also received a Distinction in the Competition for the Zygmunt Gloger Medal “for researching the history of the martyrdom and extermination of the Jewish community at Treblinka”. He is the author and co-author of many books, the most important of which, according to him, are: Bojownikom o Niepodległość Cześć !, (Siedlce 2001, together with his wife Katarzyna), Treblinka. Never Again, (Treblinka 2002), Stalag 366, (Siedlce 2004), Jews in Siedlce 1850-1945, (Siedlce 2009), I will give them a name forever. Poles from the Treblinka area rescuing Jews, (Oxford-Treblinka 2011 together with Rev. Paweł Rytel-Andrianik ), Jews in Siedlce 1850 – 1945, New York [2014], Treblinka Labour Camp I. Methodology for integrating multi-source data, (Warsaw-Treblinka 2017, jointly with Sebastian Różycki and Marek Michalski).
Wacław Kornblum – Holocaust survivor, born in Paris to a Jewish family, he moved to Warsaw in the late 1920s. He lived at 42 Śliska St. His parents were members of the Bund Party. After the outbreak of war, the Kornblum family lived at 35 Niska St. He survived the first liquidation action by paying off the Jewish police. In 1943 he was ransomed from the Umschlagplatz by his uncle. From then on he was in hiding, first with his uncle in the ghetto area, then in Praga and Bialystok. He survived the war and left for Israel in 1957. After thirty years, he returned to Warsaw. He lives in Saska Kępa. Wacław’s father, Szlojme Kornblum , was a writer who wrote in Yiddish; his books were printed and published in Warsaw. His output was digitised in Vilnius and sent to YIVO in New York.
Gideon Nissenbaum – Chairman of the Board of the Nissenbaum Foundation, son of its founder Sigmund Nissenbaum. The Foundation, established in Warsaw in 1983, has for over 30 years been saving traces of Jewish culture in the Polish lands and commemorating sites of combat and martyrdom of Jews during World War II, as well as promoting knowledge of the best traditions of the common history of Poles and Jews throughout the world. Sigmund Nissenbaum was one of the first advocates of the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
Rachel Postavski – was born in Poland as the only child of two Holocaust survivors, Ada Sztyren and Henryk Borensztein, whose families had lived in Warsaw for generations. During World War II, most of her extended family perished in the Warsaw Ghetto or in the Treblinka death camp. In 1957, Ms Postawski moved to Israel with her parents. She graduated from the Practical Engineering School in Tel Aviv and obtained a bachelor’s degree in science teaching from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She taught physics for over 30 years and headed the Physics Department at Ort Binyamina. She was a member of the Zichron Yaakov municipality council and a mediator at the Mediation Centre there. Since 2004, she has overseen the artistic and personal archive of the painter, illustrator, designer and film director Henrik Hechtkopf (1910-2004).
Michael Schudrich – American-Polish religious scholar and historian, since 2004 Chief Rabbi of Poland. From 1990 to 1998 he worked in Warsaw for the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. In 2000, he became the rabbi of Warsaw and Łódź. It was mainly due to his efforts that Jewish kindergartens and schools were established in Poland. He is a member of the Rabbinate of the Republic of Poland. He takes an active part in Polish-Jewish and Christian-Jewish dialogue. He has been awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for his outstanding contribution to Polish-Jewish dialogue, and Missio Reconciliationis for his work in advancing Polish-Jewish dialogue.
Dr Joanna Elżbieta Nalewajko-Kulikov – PhD, Associate Professor at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, editor-in-chief of “Acta Poloniae Historica”. Her research interests include the history of East European Jewry in the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of Yiddish culture (especially the press) and Polish-Jewish relations. She is the author of the monograph Strategies of Survival. Żydzi po aryjskiej stronie Warszawy (2004), Citizen of Yiddishland. Rzecz o żydowskich komunistach w Polsce (2009) and Mówić we własnym imieniu. Yiddish press and the creation of a Jewish national identity (2016). Editor and co-editor of the volumes Trudny wiek XX (2010, co-ed. G. P. Bąbiak), Studia z dziejów trójjęzycznej prasy żydowskiej na ziemiach polskich (XIX-XX w.) (2012, in collaboration with G. P. Bąbiak and A. J. Cieślikowa) and Lesestunde/Lekcja czytania (2013, co-ed. G. Krzywiec, R. Leiserowitz, S. Lehnstaedt). For the Ringelblum Archive publishing series, she critically compiled the memoirs of Tzvi Prylucki (2015) and Emanuel Ringelblum’s notes from the Warsaw Ghetto (2018). For the project, she is responsible for the critical editing of the memoirs of Rochl Feigenberg.
Adam Struzik – Doctor, local government and social activist, parliamentarian. Marshal of the Senate from 1993 to 1997, senator for the second, third and fourth terms, since 2001 Marshal of the Mazovian Voivodship. Volunteer fireman and member of the Provincial Executive and Executive Boards of the Association of Volunteer Fire Brigades of the Republic of Poland. Since 1998, member of the Mazovian Voivodship Council. Chairman of the Health and Physical Culture Committee of the first term of the Mazovian Voivodeship Assembly. In October 2018, on behalf of the local government of the Mazovian Voivodeship, he signed the lease deed of the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital to the Warsaw Ghetto Museum for 30 years.
Krzysztof Strzałkowski– Graduate of the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science at the University of Warsaw in the field of political science (with a specialisation in social policy) and postgraduate managerial studies at the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw. In 2005-2008, he was a doctoral student and lecturer at the Institute of Social Policy at the University of Warsaw. In 2003, he started his career as a local government employee in local government units at various levels. In 2008-2010, he was the director of the Voivodeship Labour Office in Warsaw, where he initiated, inter alia, the establishment of the Mazovian Labour Market Observatory. In 2006-2010, he was a councillor of the Wołomin district, chairing the Health and Social Policy Committee. As Deputy Marshal of the Mazovian Voivodeship (2010-2014), he supervised the work of the Department of Social and Health Policy and the Department of Real Estate and Infrastructure. From May to December 2014, he served as mayor of the Bemowo district. Since December 2014, he has served as mayor of the Wola district.
Menachem Margolin – Chairman and the founder of European Jewish Association. Since graduating from Yeshiva in New York, Rabbi Margolin’s became program director at the Rabbinical centre for Europe in 2004, he quickly became general director in 2006, then four years later he became General Director of the European Jewish Association – Europe’s centre of Jewish activity.Spearheading the direction and activities of this umbrella organisation and representing Jewish communities and organisations across Europe, Rabbi Margolin ensures that the EJA effectively lobbies European and national politicians to raise the profile of and support its initiatives to fight against anti-Semitism and intolerance and preserve religious ritual practice across EU member states.
Rachel Yud – Chairwoman of Ganzach Kidush Hashem, an educator with a significant track record in the area of curriculum development and teacher training for educational activities targeting women and the Israeli Haredi community. She specialises in Israeli history and the Holocaust.
Irene Kronhill – Pletka – runs a foundation dedicated to the memory of her parents, which supports Jewish cultural and educational projects and activities that promote social justice around the world. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the Center for Jewish History and the JOINT organisation (JDC), which helped her family and many others during the most difficult time of the war and post-war period for them.