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This annual award is for an author of published works documenting Polish-Jewish relations and Jewish contributions to Polish culture. It is administered by YIVO in collaboration with The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and was endowed in 1992 by Jan Karski, the courier of the Polish government-in-exile during World War II, to honor his wife, Pola Nireńska, a dancer, who was the only survivor of her Jewish family during the Holocaust.

The Jan Karski and Pola Nireńska Award Committee comprises of: Jonathan Brent (Executive Director of The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research), Monika Krawczyk (director of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute), professor Ewa Geller, professor Tadeusz Epsztein and professor Andrzej Żbikowski. The Committee unanimously chose prof. Anna Landau-Czajka for the laureate for the 2022 award. 

Anna Landau-Czajka is a sociologist and historian and  professor at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She focuses on the history of Polish-Jewish relations, the history of women and the social history of the 20th century.

She is the author of numerous publications including : W jednym stali domu. Koncepcje rozwiązania kwestii żydowskiej w publicystyce polskiej lat 1933–1939 (1998) [They lived in one house. Concepts for resolving the Jewish question in Polish journalism in the years 1933-1938 (1998)], Co Alicja odkrywa po własnej stronie lustra. Życie codzienne, społeczeństwo, władza w podręcznikach dla dzieci najmłodszych 1785–2000 (2002) [What Alicja discovers on her side of the mirror. Everyday life, society, power in textbooks for the youngest children 1785-2000 (2002)], Syn będzie Lech... Asymilacja Żydów w Polsce międzywojennej (2006) [The son will be Lech… Assimilation of Jews in interwar Poland (2006)],  Polska to nie oni: Polska i Polacy w polskojęzycznej prasie żydowskiej II Rzeczypospolitej, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warszawa 2015 [Poland is not them: Poland and Poles in the Polish-language Jewish press of the Second Polish Republic, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw 2015] Wielki ‘Mały Przegląd’. Społeczeństwo i życie codzienne w II Rzeczypospolitej w oczach korespondentów „Małego Przeglądu”, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, Warszawa 2018 [The Great ‘Small Overview’. Society and everyday life in the Second Polish Republic in the eyes of correspondents of “Mały Przegląd”, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw 2018].

In the years 2003-2006 she was a professor at the Jerzy Giedroyc Higher Academy of Communication and Social Media in Warsaw, and throughout 2006-2011 she was  professor and director of the Institute of Sociology of Warsaw University. In 2013-2014, she was the chairman of the Program Committee of the E. Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Past Karski Award laureates have included  include Eugenia Prokop-Janiec, Jerzy Ficowski, Michał Friedman, Marek Rostworowski, Henryk Grynberg, Ruta Sakowska, Jerzy Tomaszewski, Hanna Krall, Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, priest Stanisław Musiał, Leszek Hońdo, Michał Jagiełło, Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Jan Jagielski, Joachim S. Russek, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Szymon Rudnicki, Aleksander B. Skotnicki, Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov, Marcin Wodziński, Alina Skibińska and Barbara Engelking, Piotr Matywiecki, Jerzy Malinowski, Ewa Geller, Eleonora Bergman, Tadeusz Epsztein, Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota, Daniel Grinberg, Joanna Lisek, Jan Doktór.

This year’s award will be presented at a Gala held in Warsaw on Thursday, December 8 at 12pm EST, which will be live streamed on Facebook.