He was a geologist by education, but his true passion and mission, which he remained faithful to the end of his life, was to commemorate the history of Polish Jews. The Guardian of Memory, he was the initiator of dozens of commemorations of murdered Jewish communities throughout Poland.

The walks he organized around Jewish Warsaw always attracted crowds. He knew every matzeva at the Okopowa cemetery and knew how to tell their stories like no one else. For the last 30 years, he was in charge of the Documentation Department at the Jewish Historical Institute. We all came to his room, filled to the ceiling with binders with thousands of photos, and Janek flawlessly pulled out the necessary ones. And he told, told ...

We will always remember how much we owe him.

Dear Janek, rest in peace ...

 

fot. by Adrian Grycuk - Praca własna, CC BY-SA 3.0 pl, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25592997