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Ronald S. Lauder Named Benefactor of Polish Culture
For the second year running, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage awarded its Benefactor of Polish Culture prizes at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. Ronald S. Lauder, nominated by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, won the prize in the Donor category. His support has enabled the Museum to install up-to-date conservation workshops and studios.
Ronald Lauder was represented at the ceremony at the Royal Castle in Warsaw by Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and Rabbi Maciej Pawlak, Director of the Lauder School in Warsaw. They accepted the prize and accompanying statue. In brief remarks, Director Cywiński noted that “We associate culture with beauty and harmony. However, Polish culture also bears the legacy of the darkest events in human history. That legacy, too, is a part of culture.”
Ronald Lauder is President of the World Jewish Congress and the man behind the Lauder Foundation. After visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial in the 1980s, he offered to help assess the needs and raise funds for conservation work. This resulted in numerous projects that were completed in the 1990s. He also underwrote the professional conservation workshops and studios, costing about $2.5 million, that have been essential since 2003 to preserving the material testimony of Auschwitz.
“For almost 20 years, Ronald Lauder has regularly supported the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, and he has never asked for any kind of plaque or honors,” said Piotr Cywiński. “This is a rare attitude today, and worthy of emulation. It makes him all the more deserving of today’s award.”
The unprecedented conservation project now underway to preserve the ruins of gas chambers and crematoria II and III at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site is possible exclusively because of the aid and personal commitment of Ronald Lauder.
Ronald Lauder’s contribution to the conservation of gas chambers and crematoria II and III at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site results not only from a one-time donation, but also from long-term cooperation. This inestimable contribution to the preservation of the apparatus of the Nazi German Holocaust is all the more essential and significant because it has to do with such a difficult subject and involves issues of continually increasing complexity. This project will save one of the most important sites for the conscience of contemporary humanity. This is a responsibility, broadly understood, that plays an active role in shaping the directions of our shared future.
In conversation with a member of the jury, we learned that the Museum’s proposal to honor Ronald Lauder in the Donor category was approved unanimously.
The Benefactor of Polish Culture title is awarded to the best sponsors and donors who support various cultural events, performances, concerts, exhibitions, or conservation projects. Over 150 sponsors of various cultural events in Poland comprised this year’s nominees.
The Benefactor of Polish Culture title in the Donor category is awarded for creating a private art collection, placing works of art on deposit, donating buildings or land and making them accessible for cultural purposes, donating regularly to an institution or periodic cultural event, underwriting prizes or scholarships, initiating cultural foundations or institutions, renovating works of art, or endowing technical equipment for cultural institutions.
A jury nominated by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage chooses the winner from a short list of candidates.
The jury this year was as follows:
- Bogdan Zdrojewski — Minister of Culture and National Heritage
- Jerzy Biernat — Chairman of the Royal Baths Association
- Barbara Borys-Damięcka — Chairwoman of the Association of Theater Directors in Poland, and Senator of the Polish Republic
- Krzysztof Czyżewski — Chairman of the Borderlands Foundation
- Waldemar Dąbrowski — Director of the Theater of the Grand National Opera
- Marek Goliszewski — Chairman of the BCC
- Mikołaj Grabowski — Director of the Helena Modrzejewska National Teatr Stary in Cracow
- Wojciech Krukowski — Director of the Ujazdowski Castle Center of Modern Art
- Maciej Łagiewski — Director of the Municipal Museum of Wrocław
- Ewa Michnik — Director of the Wrocław Opera
- Agnieszka Morawińska — Dyrektor Zachęta National Art Gallery
- Prof. Andrzej Rottermund — Director of the Royal Castle in Warsaw
- Andrzej Wajda — Director
