The purpose of the Jan Karski US Centennial Campaign is to shine the spotlight on this great man and to propagate the Karski legacy with international educational activities, public events and artistic performances, leading up to the centennial year of his birth in 2014. A highlight of this Campaign will be having the Presidential Medal of Freedom – America’s highest civilian honor – awarded posthumously to Professor Karski, which is expected to occur in late May 2012.
This American campaign is an international collaboration with the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, Poland. Additional partners are on the Partners/Benefactors page.
The Jan Karski US Centennial Steering Committee
Alicia Belzberg
Alicia Belzberg was born in Poland and emigrated in 1969. Ms. 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. Currently, Ms. Belzberg is CEO of Infinigon Group Inc, her new venture focused on Social Media Analytics. Additionally, Ms Belzberg is President of Silver Car Publishing LLC, a book publishing company. Ms. Belzberg is also in the process of directing and producing a documentary film “The Last Exodus and the Reconciliation.”
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.
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.
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.
Leonard Kniffel
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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).
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.
Leo J. O'Donovan, SJ
Leo J. O’Donovan is a native New Yorker and a member of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus, ordained a priest in 1966. He holds degrees from Georgetown University, Fordham University, Woodstock College, and the University of Muenster, Germany, where he did his doctoral studies in systematic theology under Karl Rahner. He has taught at Loyola University, Baltimore; Union Theological Seminary, New York; Woodstock College, New York; and Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Father O’Donovan was president of Georgetown University from 1989 to 2001. He is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He lives in New York City, where he writes, teaches and serves on a number of boards committed to the poor.
Christopher Ossowski
Christopher Ossowski works at the Mergers and Acquisitions department of Credit Suisse in London. Prior to Credit Suisse he worked at Lehman Brothers on the Russian Equity Research team. In 2005, Mr. Ossowski worked as a State Department intern at the Political and Economic Section of the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. He received a M.Sc. in Political Economy from London School of Economics and B.Sc. in the same field from Georgetown University. Mr. Ossowski helped set up the Georgetown Club of Poland, which supports the Jan Karski US National Centennial Campaign.
Anthony Paduano
Anthony Paduano is a founding partner of Paduano & Weintraub LLP. He has exclusively worked as a litigator and has focused heavily on cases in the financial services industry. He is recognized as an expert in broker-dealer litigation matters. As lead counsel, Mr. Paduano’s principal clients have included Prudential Financial, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Commonwealth Financial. Mr. Paduano graduated from Georgetown University cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in 1979; he received a master’s from the London School of Economics in 1981and graduated from Rutgers Law School in 1984. In 1998, he received the “Thurgood Marshall Award” from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York “in recognition of exemplary service to the cause of justice in the United States.” Mr. Paduano was named a Super Lawyer© (New York) by Law & Politics mgazine. A member of the Board of Regents of Georgetown University, he sits on the executive committee and is secretary. He has three sons with his wife, Ruth Porat.
Romuald J. Poplawski
Romuald J. Poplawski is president of US Global Corporation, a company focused on the management and development of renewable energy projects worldwide. Previously, he served as director of the International Business Division of the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs for the State of Illinois. He is the former director of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Polish Institute of Science and Culture. He was appointed to the Advisory Council on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and served on international advisory councils of DePaul University, Illinois Institute of Technology, the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the US- Poland Chamber of Commerce. He was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit by former Polish President Lech Kaczynski for fostering Polish – US business relations. Mr. Poplawski received his undergraduate degree in international management from Georgetown University and his MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also studied at Oxford University in England and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. His son is a graduate of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.
Andrzej Rojek
Andrzej Rojek is one of the four founders and principals 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 equities since 1986. He served as a managing director and partner at Bankers Trust and also with the convertibles groups at Merrill Lynch and Cresvale Securities. 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.
Sigmund Rolat
Sigmund Rolat was born in Czestochowa, Poland in 1930. Though losing his parents and older brother Jerzyk, he survived the Holocaust in hiding and in the forced labor camp Hasag Pelcery. Mr. Rolat came to the United States in 1948 and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and his master’s in international relations from New York University. In 1959, he established an international freight forwarding business and, in 1962, Oxford International Corporation, an export finance company. He is president of Oxford Polska. Sigmund Rolat’s chief philanthropic endeavor is the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, currently under construction in Warsaw. He serves as chairman of the museum’s North American Council. A past member of the executive committee and the board of governors of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, he is president of the World Society of Czestochowa Jews and Their Descendants. On April 15, 2008, Mr. Rolat was awarded by the late President Lech Kaczynski the Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. Mr. Rolat resides in Manhattan and Bal Harbour, Florida. He has three children and is the proud grandfather of four.
Edward Rowny
Ambassador/ Lt. General Edward l. Rowny was born in 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a Polish emigrant and his mother a U.S. citizen. A West Point graduate, he served in Africa and Italy during WWII. He served in the Korean War and helped plan the Inchon Invasion. In 1962 he introduced the first armed helicopter in Vietnam. From 1981 to 1985, he was the chief negotiator for the Strategic Arms Reduction with the rank of Ambassador. From 1985 to 1989 he was Special Advisor on Arms Control to President Reagan. President Reagan awarded General Rowny the Citizens Medal for being one of the “chief architects” for “Peace through Strength.” Since retiring Gen. Rowny has continued to act as an advisor on national security, he is President of the American Polish Advisory Council and President of the Paderewski Scholarship Fund. See www.paderewskirowny.org for more information.
Thomas Sneeringer
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Thomas M. Sneeringer is Managing Director, Federal Governmental Affairs, United States Steel Corporation. He was awarded two degrees from Georgetown University, a B.A. in American Government (1970) and a J.D (1973), and has worked and resided in Washington, DC, ever since. From 1984-1990, he served as Legislative Director for Congressman Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL), at the time the highest ranking elected Polish-American in the U. S. Congress. In that capacity, he helped to bring about a number of significant legislative enactments and other U.S. government actions designed to end martial law and promote democracy in Poland. He was instrumental in arranging for Lech Walesa’s famous speech before a joint session of Congress, an extraordinarily rare privilege for a non-head of state. In his current position, he is a leading steel industry lobbyist and heads U. S. Steel’s Washington Office. There, he has responsibility for a broad range of industrial issues, with a specialty in the rules of international trade. He has been an active Georgetown alumnus, having served in leadership positions in both the regional and national associations. He is married and has five children, ranging from age 36 to 20-year old twins.
Alex Storozynski
Alex Storozynski is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author, and president and executive director of The Kosciuszko Foundation. Formerly a member of the New York Daily News editorial board and city editor of The New York Sun, Mr. Storozynski has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, Newsday and other publications. His book, The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Era of Revolution, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2009. He has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz. From 1985-1987, Mr. Storozynski was a post-graduate fellow at the University of Warsaw. His awards include the George Polk Award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award, the Deadline Club Award, and the 2010 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award.
Wanda Urbanska
Wanda Urbanska is director of the Jan Karski US Centennial Campaign. In this capacity, she 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" (now on hulu.com). She has published widely in the "Los Angeles Times," the "Washington Post," the "Chicago Tribune," "Natural Home" and many others and is a monthly blogger for the American Library Association’s “@ your library website.” 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.
Ewa Wierzynska
Ewa Wierzynska works as an advisor to the director of 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 master 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 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. One of the objectives of her program is to introduce the story of Jan Karski into school curriculums in an innovative and captivating way. Ms. Wierzynska's son, Gregory Wierzynski, is a graduate of Georgetown University Law School.
Others on the Jan Karski US Team
Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka
Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka was named Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York on March 1st, 2010. She was previously Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, where she was in charge of social issues and Polish-Jewish relations. Ms. Junczyk-Ziomecka graduated from the law department and completed post-graduate studies in journalism at the University of Warsaw. In August 1980, she was at the Gdańsk Shipyard during the Solidarity-ignited strike. During the subsequent imposition of martial law in Poland, she was banned by the communist regime from working as a journalist. After coming to the United States in 1982, Ms. Junczyk-Ziomecka became editor-in-chief of the Dziennik Polski daily in Detroit. In 2001, she was named director of development at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. The author of several books and numerous articles, the Consul General has two grown children.
Jane Robbins
Jane Robbins is the website designer for JanKarski.net and is also coordinating the social media efforts for the Jan Karski US Centennial Campaign. She is also 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 B.A. and M.B.A. degrees, 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 a son in college, and lives in the Washington, DC area.
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 20th 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.
