Anna Bikont | |
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![]() Bikont at a reading of The Crime and the Silence at Boston University in 2015. | |
Born | |
Education | Warsaw University |
Occupation | Writer |
Known for | Co-founder Gazeta Wyborcza |
Spouse | Piotr Bikont (deceased 2017) |
Anna Bikont (born 17 July 1954) is a Polish journalist for the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in Warsaw. [1] She is the author of several books, including My z Jedwabnego (2004) about the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom, which was published in English as The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne (2015). The French edition, Le crime et le silence, won the European Book Prize in 2011. [2]
Bikont was born in a Polish-Jewish family [3] in Warsaw to journalist Wilhelmina Skulska and Catholic-Polish writer Andrzej Kruczkowski. She has a sister, Maria Kruczkowska. A psychologist by training, Bikont also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Gotenborg. [4]
Bikont worked at the University of Warsaw as a research assistant in psychology from 1980 to 1989. [5] She joined Solidarity in 1980, becoming the editor of Informację Solidarności, an internal pamphlet that came out initially daily, then weekly and helped inform many other clandestine publications operating at that time. [5] [6] In 1982, she co-founded and began to edits the Tygodnik Mazowsze weekly, Poland's largest underground publication, continuing to do until 1989, [7] when she became one of the founders of Gazeta Wyborcza , the first legal newspaper published outside the communist government's control. It became independent of Solidarity in 1990. She has continued to work for the paper as a senior journalist. [8]
In response to Jan T. Gross's history of the Jedwabne massacre, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001), the Polish government commissioned an investigation led by prosecutor Radosław Ignatiew for the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). [9] Bikont began her own journalistic investigation, interviewing numerous people in Jedwabne, including descendants of survivors and persons living in the city when Gross's book was published. [2] She also wrote more about the topic in her 2004 book My z Jedwabnego (Jedwabne: Battlefield of Memory). [10]
Her recent book, Sendlerowa. W Ukryciu (English: Sendler: In Hiding) was a finalist for the Nike Award, one of Poland's most prestigious literary awards, and also received the 2018 Ryszard Kapuściński award. [11] The work chronicles the life of Irena Sendler and other Polish women who provided shelter for Jewish children during the Shoah. [11]
Her husband, journalist and director Piotr Bikont (1955–2017), died in a car accident in 2017. [12]
Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist, photographer, poet and author. He received many awards and was considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kapuściński's personal journals in book form attracted both controversy and admiration for blurring the conventions of reportage with the allegory and magical realism of literature. He was the Communist-era Polish Press Agency's only correspondent in Africa during decolonization, and also worked in South America and Asia. Between 1956 and 1981 he reported on 27 revolutions and coups, until he was fired because of his support for the pro-democracy Solidarity movement in his native country. He was celebrated by other practitioners of the genre. The acclaimed Italian reportage-writer Tiziano Terzani, Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, and Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda accorded him the title "Maestro".
Irena Stanisława Sendler (née Krzyżanowska), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerreJolanta, was a Polish humanitarian, social worker, and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. From October 1943 she was head of the children's section of Żegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews.
Gazeta Wyborcza is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the trade union "Solidarity" in the election campaign before the Contract Sejm. Initially created to cover Poland's first partially free parliamentary elections, it rapidly grew into a major publication, reaching a circulation of over 500,000 copies at its peak in the 1990s.
Jan Tomasz Gross is a Polish-American sociologist and historian. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society, emeritus, and Professor of History, emeritus, at Princeton University.
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The Ryszard Kapuściński Award is a major annual Polish international literary prize, the most important distinction in the genre of literary reportage.
The SARP Honorary Award is one of the two most prominent and significant annual architectural prizes in Poland, and it's awarded by the Association of Polish Architects (SARP) in recognition of the outstanding lifetime achievements in the field of architecture. It has been acclaimed 'the most prestigious architecture award' by Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza and by Art & business: gazeta aukcyjna.
Ryszard Jerzy Petru (born 6 July 1972) is a Polish politician. He served as an assistant to several members of parliament in the 1990s. He has worked as an economist for the World Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers and several Polish banks. Since 2011, he has been the chairman of the Association of Polish Economists. He is the author of several books, including two children's books on economics.
Małgorzata Szejnert is a Polish journalist and writer.
Piotr Pytlakowski is a Polish journalist and screenwriter, from 1997 associated with the weekly "Polityka".
Maciej Hen is a Polish writer, translator and journalist.
Artur Domosławski is a Polish journalist and writer.
The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne is a 2004 book by Polish journalist Anna Bikont on the Jedwabne massacre, a 1941 pogrom of Polish Jews in Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland.
Andrzej Leszek Szcześniak was a controversial Polish doctor of historical sciences, author of over thirty historical books and school textbooks. While he was praised for his research of the Katyn massacre, he was also accused of anti-Semitism.
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Wojciech Sumliński is a Polish psychologist, investigative journalist, publicist and film director. He worked for the Polish magazines, including: the daily newspaper Życie and the weekly magazines Gazeta Polska and Wprost. Sumliński made also documentaries for Telewizja Polska. In his career he has written about the death circumstances of priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, history of the Polish communist secret service, Polish politics and the country's justice system.