Jan Karski Educational Foundation

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The Jan Karski Educational Foundation Board of Directors - America and the Jan Karski Educational Foundation/Council (Fundacja Edukacyjna Jana Karskiego) Board of Directors - Poland

Przemyslaw Krych

Przemysław Krych is Managing Partner of Cornerstone Partners and Griffin Group - respectively: private equity and real estate fund management businesses with approximately EUR 300 million under management. Prior to funding his own business, he was Managing Director and Partner of TDA Capital Partners (previously Templeton Direct Advisors) and manager of the Emerging Europe Private Equity Funds. Before that held a number of senior positions at Bank Handlowy w Warszawie S.A. (nowadays Citibank Handlowy), including member of Management Committee, Head of Private Equity Group and Head of Loan Workout Department. Mr. Krych was a member of the Law faculty at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, from which he holds a Master’s of Science degree in Law.

Bozena Nowicka McLees

Bozena Nowicka McLees is a Polish language and literature instructor at Loyola University Chicago. She earned her M.A. in Polish Language and Literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ms. McLees is experienced in teaching and developing Polish language, literature and culture curriculum. Ms. McLees’ work focuses on connecting evolving academic programs in Poland with the existing network of schools, higher-education institutions and Polish American organizations in Chicago to promote interest in and understanding of Polish culture along with the acquisition and maintenance of heritage language skills. She collaborates with Poland’s State Commission in providing examination for the Certification of Proficiency in Polish as a Foreign Language and with the Chicago Sister City Warsaw Committee in leading the Educational Exchange Subcommittee. In 2008, Ms. McLees was appointed as Director of Interdisciplinary Polish Studies at Loyola University to further develop an academic program that can meet the needs and aspirations of Polish heritage students as well as non-Polish students who are interested in Polish history and culture.

Michal Mrozek

Michał H. Mrożek is a graduate (cum laude) of Georgetown University, Washington D.C. with a joint bachelor and master's degree in international trade & finance. In 1991, he joined the Washington-based management consulting group of Price Waterhouse. He was later appointed as Manager and subsequently Department Director to the Ministry of Privatization in Warsaw, Poland, managing privatization projects primarily in the SME sector with support from the World Bank, European Union and the EBRD. Mr. Mrożek then joined Bank Handlowy in Warsaw, where he coordinated launching the bank’s first corporate client coverage model. He ran the Corporate Banking Department supervising marketing & sales activities of this largest Polish corporate bank (at the time) on its portfolio of strategic clients. Following the merger of Citibank (Poland) with Bank Handlowy, he was appointed Head of Strategic Planning & Corporate Development of the new Bank - Citibank Handlowy, working closely with all business segments and support functions on post-acquisition integration of the two banks. Mr. Mrożek led the initiative of creating an integrated client coverage platform for the 9,000 institutional clients of the Bank in Poland. In 2011, Mr. Mrożek joined the Citibank, N.A. management team in New York, where he has been coordinating projects in the areas of international franchise governance, strategic planning and lending.

Andrzej Rojek

Andrzej Rojek is the Managing Director at Advent Capital Management. Previously, he was one of the founders of Lydian Asset Management, the global hedge fund, established in 1999, and focused on convertible bonds and relative value credit investments. Mr. Rojek has been active in global finance since 1986. He served as a managing director and partner at Bankers Trust and also with the convertibles groups at Merrill Lynch. A US citizen who was born in Poland in 1956, Mr. Rojek graduated with honors from Warsaw University in 1979 with a degree in economics. He received his master’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1985. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York and is involved in numerous charitable initiatives in Poland (Museum of History of Polish Jews) as well as in the US (Polish Studies Chair at Columbia University). Mr. Rojek is married and has two children.

Wanda Urbanska

Wanda Urbanska is president of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation. Prior to this, she directed the Jan Karski US Centennial Campaign which placed Jan Karski's name in nomination for a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received posthumously from President Obama on May 2012. As president of the Foundation, which has sister branches in the US and Poland, Ms. Urbanska lends her decades-long experience in strategic planning, development, media and public relations and writing to the campaign. The author or coauthor of nine books, including "The Heart of Simple Living: 7 Paths to a Better Life" (Krause: 2010), she was host-producer of America’s first nationally syndicated public TV series advocating sustainable living, "Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska". She has published widely in the "Los Angeles Times," the "Washington Post," the "Chicago Tribune," "Natural Home" and many others. A graduate of Harvard University and a frequent visitor to Poland, her father's native land, Ms. Urbanska was awarded the prestigious Amicus Poloniae award in 2006 for promoting good will between America and Poland. In 2012, she was decorated by President Komorowski at the Polish Consulate in New York with a Knight's Cross for her work to improve ties between Poland and America.

Ewa Wierzynska

Ewa Wierzynska works as Senior Advisor for International Cooperation at the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, Poland and as the leader of the Jan Karski, Unfinished Mission educational and public awareness program. Her previous assignment was as deputy director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Ms. Wierzynska holds masters degrees from the Warsaw School of Economics and the University of Warsaw. She is the author of several books of historical non-fiction and numerous articles. Exiled from Poland in 1984 for political reasons, Ms. Wierzynska and her family spent 20 years in the United States where she worked as a congressional aide, free lance journalist, advertising executive and public relations specialist. During the years 1992 - 2000, she lived in the Washington DC area, where she befriended Jan Karski. Since her return to Poland in 2005, Ms. Wierzynska has devoted her time to the memory of Jan Karski in Poland.

Krzysztof Zakrzewski

Krzysztof Zakrzewski is one of Domanski Zakrzewski Palinka (DZP) Law Firm's founders. He became its Managing Partner in 1999. He advises both domestic and foreign firms on investment projects and capital market instruments. He also advises banks and private and public companies for which he has negotiated numerous mergers, acquisitions, share acquisitions and project financing transactions. He is an attorney ad litem in domestic and international arbitration cases connected with mergers and acquisitions, and investment protection (BIT), and an arbitrator at the Arbitration Court of the Warsaw Chamber of Commerce and the Arbitration Court at the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan. He participated in legislative work on the Act on the Privatisation of State-owned Enterprises and the Act on Companies with Foreign Capital and was adviser to and attorney-in-fact of the Minister of Privatisation. He formerly co-operated with the Business Development Institute and Foundation – Centre for Privatisation. He is a member of the International Bar Association and the Best Lawyers Advisory Board. Mr. Zakrzewski is also a member of the supervisory board of the think tank Instytut Wolności.

Advisory Board Members

David Harris

David Harris has been executive director of the premiere global advocacy organization, the American Jewish Committee, since 1990. Mr. Harris was the first American Jewish organizational leader to address the World Economic Forum in Davos, and he has testified before the US Congress, as well as the UN Commission on Human Rights. Mr. Harris graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and pursued his graduate studies in international relations at the London School of Economics. In 2009, he was elected a senior associate at Oxford University (St. Antony’s College). He has been honored by the governments of Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Spain, Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Since 2001, he has had a regular spot on the CBS Radio Network, reaching 30 to 35 million listeners. Mr. Harris writes a popular blog on international affairs at the Huffington Post and the Jerusalem Post. Married, he is the father of three.

Joseph Kurowski

Joseph Kurowski is currently a law student at St. Louis University School of Law. He received his undergraduate degree from Loyola University of Chicago. While at Loyola he attended its John Felice Rome Center of Liberal Arts for one year. During his time in Rome, he worked at the international NGO, Youth Action for Peace. After college, he worked at a civil litigation law firm in San Francisco, and then earned his Master's in Business Administration from Loyola University Chicago's Quinlan School of Business, where he was a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society and president of the Association of Loyola Entrepreneurs. Before entering business school, Mr. Kurowski was a teaching assistant at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland for a human rights course. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe and is proficient in Italian. In his free time, Joseph enjoys traveling, learning Polish, and playing ice hockey. He is single and lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

Leonard P. Slotkowski, Jr.

Leonard P. Slotkowski, Jr. is a consultant for several organizations in the food industry and director of business development for a company that provides green products and solutions to Fortune 500 and 100 companies. After graduating from Loyola University with a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in education, Mr. Slotkowski began his career in education. Later, he entered his family’s meat and sausage-making business, from which he retired in June 2011. Mr. Slotkowski studied abroad during his junior year at Loyola University Chicago’s Rome Center and has returned to Rome several times as an alumni guest speaker. He also volunteers for the John Felice Rome Center’s annual student trip to Poland. He is one of the founding members of the JFRC Alumni Board, having served over 12 years on the board and as president for four years. He is the recipient of the first John Felice Award for exemplary leadership in business and support to the Rome Center. Mr. Slotkowski remains active in several community organizations and charities. The Wisconsin Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Chicago Lighthouse, and the Guild for the Blind are particularly important to Mr. Slotkowski for all the support and assistance they have given his brother and son who are both legally blind.

Management - Jan Karski Educational Foundation - America

Wanda Urbanska - President

Management - Jan Karski Educational Foundation/Council (Fundacja Edukacyjna Jana Karskiego) - Poland

Wojciech Bialozyt - Executive Director

Wojtek Białożyt is member of the Management Board and Executive Director of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation in Warsaw. His previous assignment was as Associate to the Leader of Jan Karski Unfinished Mission program at the Polish History Museum. He also worked at the Warsaw-based Digital Center think tank fostering digital aspects of the public agenda, where he was in charge of the Open Government project. Mr. Białożyt is an experienced NGO activist who has been involved in numerous international projects, (e.g. for OSCE and UN). He is passionate about 20th century history and is the author of numerous articles on Polish foreign policy and international affairs. He also worked in public relations, leading corporate communications projects for General Electric and Boeing. Mr. Białożyt graduated from the University of Silesia and Science Po Bordeaux.

Staff - Jan Karski Educational Foundation - America

Jane Robbins - Webmaster

Jane Robbins is the webmaster for jankarski.net and is also coordinating the social media outreach for the Jan Karski Educational Foundation. She is responsible for maintaining the website’s content, ensuring that it is accurate and timely. Ms. Robbins is owner and principal of the Usability for You firm, which performs website analysis and testing for non-profit and business clients. She has a masters degree, is a Certified Usability Analyst, and has many years experience working at three Fortune 100 companies. She has a keen interest in literature related to the Polish experience during World War II. She has participated in a program sponsored by the Kosciuszko Foundation at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Ms. Robbins is married with an adult son, and lives in the Washington, DC area.

Bozena U. Zaremba - Associate

Bozena U. Zaremba is a bilingual journalist and translator. She contributes to the Polish Daily News (Nowy Dziennik) and the Cosmopolitan Review. Her articles and interviews have also been published in Jazz Forum in Poland and in the Polish-Canadian Gazeta. She has interviewed over 40 renowned international pianists, musicians, writers and media personalities. She writes for the Chopin Society of Atlanta and serves as editor of its publication, Chopin Notes. Her recent translations into English include What I Received from God and People: A Story of Helena Modjeska by Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka and Radiation: A Tribute to Maria Skłodowska-Curie by Kazimierz Braun. She holds an M.A. in English from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and is a graduate of the State School of Music in Krakow, where she studied voice. She lives with her family in South Florida.

Staff - Jan Karski Educational Foundation/Council (Fundacja Edukacyjna Jana Karskiego) - Poland

Maria Belka - Project Manager

Maria Belka is a graduate of the socio-economic faculty of Geneva University, with a Bachelor degree in economic history and international relations and has obtained a Masters of Science from the University of Birmingham in Development Management – Public Economic Management and Finance. She was a delegate of the University of Birmingham for the Harvard National Model United Nations and was a member of associations promoting voluntary work for local communities and initiatives for young people. Her interests lie in organizing charity events and she enjoys volunteering internationally. She has gained experience through working with, among others, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the National Bank of Kazakhstan and European Parliament. Maria is the co-founder of a new educational website ‘Wyjdz na Ludzi’ that is currently being developed. Holding official language certifications, she is proficient in English, French and Spanish and has advanced certifications in Russian and Italian.

Others Supporting the Jan Karski Educational Foundation - America

Giordano "Gerry" Chiaruttini - Associate

Giordano Chiaruttini is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he was a student of Professor Jan Karski. He holds a masters degree in Latin American Studies from the George Washington University. Before his retirement, his career spanned more than 35 years in government and the private sector. His experience includes international banking, manager of grant-in-aid programs fostering economic development in low-income communities nationwide through local development corporations and micro-enterprise lending programs. As Deputy Director of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of International Trade, he promoted U.S. export development and lending for American small firms. He promoted SBA’s business assistance programs before national and international forums and served as the U.S. representative and Vice Chair to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Small Business Working Party. He was a writer-editor of numerous publications on small business and international trade. In the later years of his career, he was the logistics manager for a Virginia-based firm that trained U.S. and foreign nationals in border and export security to prevent the transshipment of nuclear and biological weapons, particularly in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.

Monica Koziol

Monica Koziol is an experienced educator, supervisor, administrator and researcher of urban education. She began her career in Chicago where she taught and served as a Response to Intervention Specialist. Monica is a Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development both at the elementary and secondary level in special education. She is an emerging leader who enjoys honing her leadership skills while meeting new people who too have a strong desire to be actively involved in the community. Monica has also served as keynote speaker on various topics in education. Her passion for education stems from one relentless goal: equity of access to education opportunities which results in success for every student.

Holly Robertson

Holly Robertson works as a Research Assistant for the Center of Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC and is a Masters candidate at Georgetown University in Global, International, and Comparative history focusing on 20^th century Poland and Christian-Jewish relations. Originally from southern California, she graduated from Westmont College in 2009 with a B.A. in History and a minor in Spanish. She moved to DC to intern with the Holocaust Museum’s Visitor Services Department, where she provided visiting groups with a detailed orientation of the museum, facilitated survivor presentations, and conducted volunteer and survivor interviews. In July 2011, Ms. Robertson volunteered at Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Oświęcim as part of the Amizade Global Service-Learning project, Witness to History: From the Holocaust to the Revival of Jewish Life in Poland. Ms. Robertson is an active member of the American Historical Association, the Conference Group for Central European History, and Phi Kappa Phi.

Others Supporting the Jan Karski Educational Foundation/Council (Fundacja Edukacyjna Jana Karskiego) - Poland

Eugeniusz Smolar - Programming Director

His studies of Political Economy at Warsaw University were interrupted by imprisonment, following his participation in student protests in March 1968 and organization of demonstrations against the Warsaw Pact armies’ invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of that year. Following his release from jail, and being fired from the Warsaw University, in 1970 he emigrated to Sweden, where he studied at the Uppsala University. In 1975, he joined the Polish Section of the BBC World Service in London as a journalist and later became its Deputy Director and Director (1982-97). For years he actively assisted the Workers Defence Committee KOR and other democracy movements and underground publishing and later “Solidarność” Trade Union in Poland and also the opposition in other then-communist countries. He was a co-publisher of the émigré intellectual journal Aneks (1973-1989), and co-edited Uncensored Poland News Bulletin (1977–1989) and co-edited The East European Reporter Quarterly. Following his return to Poland, he became Deputy Chairman of Polish public radio – Polskie Radio S.A. (1998-2004) with responsibility for programming, and later its Program Director (2004-2005). For years he has been active as a foreign policy analyst and as such has been participating in the activities of the Center for International Relations and became its President (2005-2009). He is also a Chairman of the official Polish-Czech Forum and has been involved in the Polish-German, Polish-Russian and Polish-Ukrainian dialogue.

The Jan Karski US Centennial Steering Committee

Alicia Belzberg

Alicia Belzberg holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. In 1993, together with her husband, Sid Belzberg, Ms. Belzberg co-founded Belzberg Technologies Inc., a technology-based brokerage firm. She led two acquisitions of floor-brokerage operations (NYSE, CBOE) and a successful IPO on the TSX. Ms. Belzberg is co-founder and CEO of Infinigon Group Inc, a venture focused on building technology, which identifies real-time trends and sentiment based on Social Media. Developed to identify real-time actionable events, the technology can be deployed across a multitude of industries as a brand monitoring and risk management tool and as an early warning system. Ms. Belzberg is also the founder and President of Silver Car Publishing LLC, a book publishing company. Additionally, Ms. Belzberg is in the process of directing and producing a documentary film “The Last Exodus and the Reconciliation”. Ms. Belzberg is a recipient of the the JNF Tree of Life award.

Michael Berkowicz

Michael Berkowicz is treasurer of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews - North American Council. He is a founding member of the Friends of the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival and a past chair of the American Institute of Architect’s Interfaith Forum on Religion, Art and Architecture and Faith & Form. Mr. Berkowicz grew up in post war Poland, where he attended a public Jewish school in Wroclaw. There he studied Yiddish and Jewish history along with secular subjects and later trained as a physicist. He is passionately interested in Polish-Jewish dialogue and Jewish presence in contemporary Poland. With his wife Bonnie Srolovitz, he founded Presentations Gallery, focusing on sanctuary design, liturgical furnishings and ceremonial arts. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards. His work is in the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum in New York. Mr. Berkowicz is currently working on a new commission for the outdoor Holocaust Memorial in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Robert Billingsley

Robert L. Billingsley is vice chairman and a member of the board of directors of Cassidy Turley, one of the largest commercial real estate services firms in the US. He has designed and implemented marketing programs for over 15 million square feet of office space. His owner clients include AEW Capital Management in Boston, The Bank of East Asia, and The Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Mr. Billingsley is a member of the board of directors for the Regional Plan Association and the Grand Central Partnership. A graduate of Georgetown University, Class of 1968, he is a former member of its board of governors and board of regents. He is a 1994 John Carroll Award recipient and was chair of the 2009 John Carroll Weekend in New York City. In 2011, he was the honoree at the Georgetown Wall Street Alliance Dinner. Robert Billingsley lives in Manhattan with his wife Janice. They have two daughters, both Georgetown graduates.

Abraham Foxman

Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) since 1987, is a world-renowned leader in the fight against anti-Semitism, bigotry and discrimination. Mr. Foxman regularly confers with elected officials and community leaders in the U.S. and abroad. He has had audiences with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Born in Poland in 1940, he was saved from the Holocaust by his Polish Catholic nursemaid who baptized and raised him as a Catholic during the war years. Mr. Foxman appears frequently on national news programs and is quoted often in national publications and other media. His op-eds have appeared in newspapers across the country, he is a contributor to the Huffington Post, and his blog, “A Point of View,” is on The Jerusalem Post website. He is the author of Jews & Money: The Story of a Stereotype, The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control and Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism.

David Harris

David Harris has been executive director of the premiere global advocacy organization, the American Jewish Committee, since 1990. Mr. Harris was the first American Jewish organizational leader to address the World Economic Forum in Davos, and he has testified before the US Congress, as well as the UN Commission on Human Rights. Mr. Harris graduated with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and pursued his graduate studies in international relations at the London School of Economics. In 2009, he was elected a senior associate at Oxford University (St. Antony’s College). He has been honored by the governments of Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Spain, and Ukraine. Since 2001, he has had a regular spot on the CBS Radio Network, reaching 30 to 35 million listeners. Mr. Harris writes a popular blog on international affairs at the Huffington Post and the Jerusalem Post. Married, he is the father of three.

Leonard Kniffel

Leonard Kniffel is a publishing executive for the American Library Association in Chicago. He is creator and publisher of the “@ your library” public awareness website (www.atyourlibrary.org), and he was editor-in-chief and publisher of American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association, from 1996 to 2011 and was a member of the editorial staff beginning in 1988. His most recent book is titled "Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries," published in 2011 and featuring interviews he has conducted over the past ten years with such luminaries as President Barack Obama, entertainers Julie Andrews and Jamie Lee Curtis, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former First Lady Laura Bush, and sports legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He worked as a librarian for 18 years at the Detroit Public Library and has traveled extensively as a journalist and ambassador for reading through the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. He is also the author of "A Polish Son in the Motherland: An American’s Journey Home", a travel memoir published in 2005 by Texas A&M University Press. He blogs for the American Library Association (americanlibrariesmagazine) and independently at Polish Son (polishson.com).

Donald J. McNeil

Since 1986, Don McNeil has represented employers in the defense of retaliatory discharge, employment discrimination, breach of contract, workplace tort, restrictive covenant, and unfair labor practice cases in federal and state courts and administrative agencies around the country. Prior to entering private practice, Mr. McNeil spent 11 years as superintendent of the Wage Claims Division of the Illinois Department of Labor. Mr. McNeil received his J.D. magna cum laude from Loyola University of Chicago. Mr. McNeil is admitted to practice in all Illinois and California state and federal trial and appellate courts and before the United States Supreme Court and the Federal District Courts in Michigan and Wisconsin. From 2006 to 2011, Mr. McNeil served as chairman of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, the agency that oversees the state's college scholarship and loan programs. In 2009, Mr. McNeil chaired the Illinois Pension Modernization Task Force, which was created pursuant to Illinois House Joint Resolution 65 and charged with analyzing the public policy implications, costs, and savings associated with various proposed changes to the benefits provided by Illinois public employee pension plans and methods of funding those benefits.