Marian Turski

Biographie

Marian Turski was born in 1926 in Druskieniki as Mosze Turbowicz. He was 14 years old when he found himself in the Łódź Ghetto, where he worked for the Lewica Związkowa (Trade Unions’ Left) underground organisation. He was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. There, the Nazis murdered his father and brother. In 1945, he survived two death marches: from Auschwitz to Buchenwald in January, and from Buchenwald to Theresienstadt in April, where he was liberated on 9 May. After World War II, he settled in Warsaw. He graduated in history
and worked as a journalist from 1958, onwards.

He dedicated years of work on the establishment of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in the Muranów District. He promoted the establishment of this unique cultural institution as the Chairman (currently Deputy Chairman) of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland. He is a member of the management bodies of The Association of Jewish Combatants and Victims of World War II, the International Auschwitz Council, the International Auschwitz Committee and the Council of the House of the Wannsee Conference: Memorial and Educational Site.

He has been awarded such distinctions as the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Officer’s Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.