Co-founder of the anti-fascist “NEVER AGAIN” Association Rafal Pankowski was awarded the prestigious annual Human Rights Distinction by Poland’s Ombudsman Dr Adam Bodnar in a ceremony held in Warsaw’s Old Town on 25 September.
The celebratory speech
was delivered by Marian Turski, a Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz survivor who is
Chairman of the Council for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and Deputy
Chairman of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute as well as a
member of the International Auschwitz Council.
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“I am honoured and grateful for the award and wish to dedicate it to the memory
of Marcin Kornak, the late leader of NEVER AGAIN, my closest friend” - said
Rafal Pankowski who is a Professor in Sociology at Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas.
– “I remember our joint efforts tackling racism, antisemitism and the far right
undertaken together with our allies Adam Bodnar and Marian Turski more than
twenty years ago. Unfortunately, some of the threats to the democratic culture
we signaled back in the 1990s are materializing in front of our eyes nowadays,
but we must move from despair to hope.”
Coincidentally, the
Australian-based Jerzy Boniecki Foundation has also decided to give its prize
to Rafal Pankowski in a separate ceremony held at the Warsaw Uprising Museum on
30 September. The prize was awarded “for educational, public and cultural
activity in favour of racial, ethnic and religious tolerance and for the
efforts in the construction of civil society and democracy.” The candidate was
nominated by Professor Jan Pakulski of the University of Tasmania.
The awards came during “NEVER
AGAIN”s busy period of activity on both national and international level.
On 17-22 September, “NEVER AGAIN” member Natalia Sineaeva-Pankowska participated in the programme on “The European Holocaust Research
Infrastructure” held in Lviv (Ukraine) by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust
and Genocide Studies (Amsterdam) in
cooperation with the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for
Contemporary History (Munich) and the Center
for Urban History of East-Central Europe (Lviv).
On 27 September, the “NEVER
AGAIN” Association, together with the History Meeting House (Warsaw) and the
Heinrich Boell Foundation (Phnom Penh), co-organized a film screening and
discussion on “The Khmer Rouge genocide and Cambodian society” with the
participation of expert speakers from Cambodia, Germany and the USA.
On 26-27 September, Dr
Anna Tatar represented “NEVER AGAIN” during the conference on “Models of Civil
Society” held at the European Parliament in Brussels.
On 27 September, “NEVER
AGAIN” activist Stanislaw Czerczak led the discussion on sports, tolerance and
identity during the film festival “Regional Identity” organized by the Zbigniew
Herbert Library and the “Europe Direct” Centre of European Information in
Gorzow Wielkopolski.
On 28 September, Dr
Maciej Kaluza participated on behalf of “NEVER AGAIN” in a discussion about the
current rise of Islamophobia with imam Youssef
Chadid, organized by the Jewish Community Centre in Krakow. In this
context, Monika Bobako’s book “Islamophobia as technology of power” was
published with the support of the “NEVER AGAIN” Association on 21 September.
On 29 September, Rafal
Pankowski presented experiences of the “NEVER AGAIN” Association during the
conference on “Promoting diversity and a discrimination free environment in
host cities during and after the FIFA World Cup 2018” organized in Moscow by
the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Moscow City Council. He discussed the
achievements and legacy of the “RESPECT Diversity” programme implemented by “NEVER AGAIN” around the Euro 2012 Football
Championships in Poland and Ukraine.
On
1 October, Rafal Pankowski will speak at a debate entitled “How to stop xenophobia?”
organized by Poland’s main daily newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” at the University of Warsaw as part of the Festival of
Science. On the same day, through its “Music Against Racism” campaign, “NEVER AGAIN” supports the anti-racist music
concert “Grand Festival Robrege”
held in front of the Palace of Culture and Sciences in the Warsaw city centre,
headlined by the French artist Manu Digital and the Polish reggae legend,
Izrael.
“NEVER AGAIN” is an
independent monitoring and educational organization established in Warsaw in
1996. It deals with the commemoration of the Holocaust as
well as contemporary issues of diversity and tolerance.
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