Arolsen Archives are awarded the BohaterON prize
The campaign titled “Warsaw Uprising. 100 Untold Stories.” has been running since last Spring. For this campaign and for the #StolenMemory project, the Arolsen Archives have now been awarded the prestigious Polish history prize BohaterON. The institution is the first non-Polish organization to be awarded the prize that has been granted on behalf of the Warsaw Insurgents since 2019.
On November 12, the BohaterON prize awarding ceremony took place at the Polish Radio’s concert hall in Warsaw. The prize is awarded for persons’, institutions’, the media’s, and companies’ dealing with the Polish history of the 20th century and promoting civic education. In seven categories, bronze, silver and gold awards can be won.
“By means of their unparalleled initiative, the Arolsen Archives do not only remember the victims, but do find a way to link with the tragic fate of the ancestors and to give statistics a human face.”
The nomination proceedings
A jury consisting of historians, representatives of the media, partners, and ambassadors of the campaign decided on the award winners. Prior to that, online voting had been held. For the #StolenMemory project and for the campaign titled “Warsaw Uprising. 100 Untold Stories.”, the Arolsen Archives won the bronze award in the category “Institution”.
Warsaw Uprising. 100 Untold Stories.
During the Warsaw Uprising, Polish resistance fighters fought against the German occupiers for two months. The National Socialists finally quelled the uprising, killing at least 150,000 fighters and civilians. They deported tens of thousands of people to concentration camps where they stripped them of all their personal belongings. About one hundred envelopes containing such personal objects were still kept at the Arolsen Archives at the beginning of this year. The objects are supposed to be returned to the victims’ families as part of the campaign titled “Warsaw Uprising. 100 Untold Stories.”.
“What we are trying is not only to return these final mementoes, but also to work with the relatives to reconstruct the fates of the victims and preserve their memory.”
Anna Meier-Osiński, the initiator of the campaign “The Warsaw Uprising. 100 Untold Stories.”.
Schools, the media, institutions, but also individuals can help with the search for relatives. Twenty-five of the one hundred families have already been found. In addition to the objects themselves, the families of the victims of Nazi persecution also receive copies of documents from the Arolsen Archives that shed light on the fate of their loved ones. Often, families only find out what happened to their relatives when they take a closer look at these documents.
