The annual remembrance highlights the lives of individuals whose work and legacy helped shape modern Poland.
Among them was Juliusz Kulesza, a 96-year-old veteran of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising who later became a graphic artist, writer and historian of wartime Warsaw. His final book, published in 2024, chronicled the story of the resistance fighters in the city’s Old Town.
Marian Turski, historian, journalist and one of the last survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, died aged 98. A co-founder of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, he was widely respected for his moral appeals against indifference and discrimination.
The film and theatre community mourned Jadwiga Jankowska-Cieślak, the first Polish actress to win the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actress award, who died in April aged 74.
In July, the country bid farewell to Tadeusz Rolke, a pioneering photographer and chronicler of post-war Warsaw, and Joanna Kołaczkowska, a beloved comedian and radio personality known for her sharp wit and work on Polish Radio’s cultural channel Trójka.
That same month, General Waldemar Skrzypczak, former commander of Poland’s land forces and a veteran of international missions, died aged 69, while acclaimed documentary filmmaker Marcel Łoziński, known for 89 mm from Europe and Everything Can Happen, passed away at 85.
The year also saw the passing of Stanisław Soyka, a celebrated singer, pianist and composer whose song Tolerance became one of Poland’s most enduring anthems of empathy and unity.
Katarzyna Stoparczyk, a respected radio journalist and creator of award-winning children’s programmes, died in September, while Adam Strzembosz, 95, a jurist and architect of Poland’s democratic legal system, passed away in October.
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Source: Polish Radio/X/@PR24_pl