As part of the next Bayit Hadash Month of Encounters with Jewish Culture organized by the Center for Jewish Culture in Cracow, on October 4^th, 2010 at 6 pm will take place a meeting with Anna Mieszkowska, author of the book „Matka dzieci Holocaustu. Historia Ireny Sendlerowej” (“Mother of the Children of the Holocaust. The Story of Irena Sendler”), published by Wydawnictwo Muza. The meeting devoted to Irena Sendler will take place as part of the cycle „Giants of the 20^th century” in the seat of the Center, at 17 Meiselsa Street in the Cracow district of Kazimierz.

Anna Mieszkowska is the author of the first book about Irena Sendler. The children she helped rescue during the Second World War, while she was working in the Welfare Assistance Department of the Warsaw Administration, were brought out from the Warsaw ghetto onto the so-called Aryan Side. They received false papers and were placed in Polish orders, orphanages and families. That way 2,500 children were rescued, among them Michał Głowiński and Elżbieta Ficowska. The Righteous Among the Nations risked her own life to save Jews. She was even arrested and tortured in the “Pawiak” prison, but the Council to Aid Jews “Żegota” managed to buy her out. Irena Sendler was awarded with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1965. She passed away in May 2008, at the age of 98.  More about Irena Sendler, about the way she organized help for Jews and about the children she rescued on the portal “Polish Righteous”. 

The Bayit Hadash (New Home) Month of Encounters with Jewish Culture has been organized by theCenter for Jewish Culture in Cracow since 1996. As part of this event, numerous concerts, lectures and meetings with authors take place.The Bayit Hadashis organizedin the first month of the Jewish year – Tishri, during the High Holidays – and is usually devoted to one personage (e.g., Franz Kafka, Mordechai Gebirtig) or topic (Jewish Galicia). This year the main subject of the Month of Encounters is the 65^th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The Center for Jewish Culture was founded in the Kazimierz district of Cracow on November 24th, 1993. Its main goals are: to preserve the Jewish heritage in the Kazimierz district of Cracow, to develop Polish-Jewish dialogue, to promote the values of an open civil society and to disseminate knowledge of the history and culture of the Polish Jews among young people. The full program of the next Month of Encounters with Jewish Culture can be found on the website of the Judaica Foundation – Center for Jewish Culture.