14-06-2013

AFTERMATH awarded with prestigious Jan Karski Eagle Award

    Ceremony of prestigious Jan Karski Eagle Award took place on June 12th 2013 at Palace on the Isle - Royal Lazienki.

    Jan Karski Eagle Award 2013 was presented to film Pokłosie (Aftermath) "for the courage to say NO to antisemitism". The film was produced in Polish-Netherland-Slovak-Russian cooperation by Apple Film Production in coproduction Topkapi Films, Metrafilms, Attack Film, Trigon Production, Telewizja Polska, Canal+ Polska, supported by Polish Film Institue, The Netherlands Film Found, Slovak Audiovisual Fund and Cinema Fund - Russian Federation.  For the first time in the history of the Award – it is presented to the film and its authors.   

    The Awardee of Jan Karski Eagle Award 2013 is also Mr Richard Pipes. World’s famous historian of Russia and Soviet Union. At the Ceremony at Royal Lazienki two Awardees from previous years received their statues: President Lech Wałęsa awarded in 2011 and Prof. Karol Modzelewski awarded in 2012.

    The founder of the Eagle Award, Jan Karski, is the legendary courier of the Polish government in London, who during the Second World War escaped from occupied Poland to the UK and US, where he provided the allied forces with information about the extermination of Jewish people perpetrated by the German occupiers. After the war, Karski reached the US, where he lectured on international relations and the theory of communism for 40 years at the Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington and for 19 years in the Pentagon.

    He established his prize in 2000. It was designed to recognise those who "are able to attend Polish interests with dignity" (in the case of Poles) and for non-Poles, those who are not indifferent to our country.  In previous years, the Jan Karski Eagle Award went to such people as: Prof. Elie Wisel, President Lech Wałęsa, Orianna Fallaci, Prof. Józef Tischner, President Michail Gorbachev, Jacek Kuroń, Tadeusz Mazowiecki , Victor Yushchenko , President Aleksander Kwaśniewski and others.