The American Institute of Polish Culture announces its Gold Medal Award

The Gold Medal of Honor is an award that the Institute confers on Polish-related people who have distinguished themselves by dedication to some field of arts, letters, or science that is important to world civilization.

Since 1987, the awards have been presented at the annual International Polonaise Ball, which is held during the winter at Miami, Florida. The Polonaise Ball is the principal annual fund-raising
event conducted by the AIPC, which also receives significant contributions from its members
for the support of its mission. The following is a complete list of distinguished recipients up to the year 2009.

Please click on the year below to view award recipients

Year 2009 recipients

Alicja Bachleda – Curuś

Polish actress and singer, born in Tampico, Mexico on May 12th, 1983. Her debut was at the tender age of 6, when she performed at a children's music festival in her home country, Poland. Awarded several times for her acting as well as her singing, Bachleda-Curuś talents have taken her around the world, and she has performed on such occasions as the UNICEF concerts in Warsaw. She has represented Poland during International Film Festivals in Croatia, Germany and Italy.

Alicja Bachleda – Curuś has performed in theater and in films. Her most noted roles include Zosia in "Pan Tadeusz" by director Andrzej Wajda, Life Achievement Academy Award recipient, Anke in "Summersturm", Wanda in the German movie "Herz im Kopf” and Veronika in "Trade". She has been received very warmly by the film critics in Hollywood and her career is getting more successful each year. Alicja was number 26 on the list of the 100 most beautiful women in the world. She is fluent in Polish, English and Spanish.

Zbigniew Paleta

Violinista de Cracovia, as they call him, Zbigniew Paleta has lived in Mexico for the last twenty-eight years. He was born in Kraków, Poland and played the violin since the age of seven. He received his music education from Kraków Academy of Music and collaborated with various Polish artists such as Leszek Długosz, Ewa Demarczyk and Marek Grechuta. He also played with Capella Cracoviensis. In 1980, Zbigniew Paleta, his wife Barbara and their two daughters Dominika and Ludwika moved to Mexico. Since then, Paleta has been playing with classical and jazz ensembles as well as with a rock bands “El Tri” and his own band “Paleta-Souza.” He performed in ZbigniewPreisner’s soundtrack for Krzysztof Kieślowski’s film“White” and for Agnieszka Holland’s “Secret Garden.” Hismusic compositions for Mexican films such as “Libre De Culpas,” have earned him two Ariel Awards (Mexican Academy of Film Award) as well as a 2002 nomination for the score for “Su Alteza Serenissima,” directed by Felipe Casalsa. His daughters are very successful Mexican telenovela actresses. They speak Polish, Spanish and English, and are very proud of their Polish heritage.

Mrs.Anna Zarnecka de Santos Burgoa

Born in Turmont, Poland, Anna Żarnecka arrived in Mexico in 1943 as a refugee from the war in Europe, where she spent two years in a concentration camp in Siberia. A Mexican citizen since 1949, she began to study painting at the Instituto de Arte de Mexico, after which she developed a technique in which the painting is composed of triangles of color.

As an internationally acclaimed artist, she has exhibited in Mexico, Warsaw, and Kraków and many other cities. More than 250 of her paintings hang in public and private collections in at least seven countries and the Vatican, among them portraits of Pope John Paul II and President Lech Wałesa. She has had 38 years of service with the Mexican Red Cross, of which she was President and the recipient of its Benemeritus and Grand Cross medals.

In 1979 she published her recollections of the concentration camp, Polonia Viente y Tinieblas (Wind and Darkness), and has since published four other books, including an explanation of her innovative triangle technique of painting.

Year 2008 recipients

Hilary Koprowski

Hilary Koprowski was born in Poland. At the age of 12, he entered the Warsaw Conservatory of Music to study piano. He continued his music education simultaneously with his medical studies at the Warsaw University. In 1939, he obtained his M.D. degree in Warsaw and upon the outbreak of World War II, he left for Italy. There, he was a volunteer physician for the Polish in exile. He also attended Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music in Rome.

In 1940, Koprowski moved to Brazil where he met Luty Kosobudski, a high school friend and physician, associated with research on yellow fever. With the joint support of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Yellow Fever Research Service and the Ministry of Education of Brazil, Koprowski joined the team researching yellow fever and neurotropic viruses. It is believed that during that time he decided to abandon his musical aspirations and focus on medical research.

Koprowski left Brazil for the United States in 1944 to become a research associate at American Cyanamid’s Lederle Laboratories, Pearl River, New York. He discovered the first vaccine against poliomyelitis which was based on oral administration of attenuated (rendered non-virulent) polio virus.

In researching a polio vaccine, he decided to focus on the use of live viruses that were attenuated instead of the killed viruses that became the basis for the injections created by Jonas Salk. Koprowski viewed the live vaccine as more powerful since it entered the intestinal tract directly and could provide lifelong immunity, whereas the Salk vaccine required boosters. Moreover, the process of administering the vaccine orally proved more efficient since an injection required medical facilities. The vaccine was taken by the first child on February 27, 1950 and within 10 years, it was administered on four continents.

Dr. Koprowski is a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences. He is a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and holds numerous prestigious foreign memberships. He has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization. On March 22, 1995, Dr. Koprowski was awarded the title of "Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland" by the President of the Republic of Finland and in 1997, the Legion D'Honneur Award from the French Government. On September 29, 1998, Koprowski was presented with the "Great Order of Merit" by the President of Poland, for his polio research. On February 25, 2000, Dr. Koprowski was honored with a reception at Thomas Jefferson University celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first feeding of the oral polio vaccine.

Dr. Koprowski is the author or co-author of over 875 articles in scientific publications and is co-editor of several journals. Currently, he is President of the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories, Inc. and head of the Center for Neurovirology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadephia, PA.

Scott Parazynski

Dr. Scott Parazynski was born July 28, 1961, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He attended high school in Dakar, Senegal, and Beirut, Lebanon, Iran, and Greece. He received a BS degree in biology from Stanford University in 1983, continuing on to graduate with honors from Stanford Medical School in 1989. He served his medical internship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School (1990). He had completed 22 months of a residency program in emergency medicine in Denver, Colorado, when selected to the Astronaut Corps.

While an undergraduate at Stanford University, Dr. Parazynski studied antigenic variation in African Sleeping Sickness, using sophisticated molecular biological techniques. While in medical school, he was awarded a NASA Graduate Student Fellowship and conducted research at NASA-Ames Research Center on fluid shifts that occur during human space flight. Additionally, he has been involved in the design of several exercise devices that are being developed for long-duration space flight, and has conducted research on high-altitude acclimatization. Dr. Parazynski has numerous publications in the field of space physiology, and has a particular expertise in human adaptation to stressful environments.

Selected as an astronaut in March 1992, Dr. Parazynski reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1992. He completed one year of training and evaluation, and was qualified as a mission specialist. He has served as the Astronaut Office Operations Planning Branch crew representative for Space Shuttle, Space Station and Soyuz training, as Deputy (Operations and Training) of the Astronaut Office ISS Branch, and as Chief of the Astronaut Office EVA Branch. In the aftermath of the Columbia tragedy, he was the Astronaut Office Lead for Space Shuttle Thermal Protection System Inspection and Repair. A veteran of five space flights, STS-66 (1994), STS-86 (1997), STS-95 (1998), STS-100 (2001) and STS-120 (2007), Dr. Parazynski has logged over 1,381 hours (over 8 weeks) in space, including over 47 hours of EVA (during 7 spacewalks), and traveled over 23 million miles.

He received many honors such as the National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Training Award in Cancer Biology (1983); Rhodes Scholarship finalist (1984); NASA Graduate Student Researcher’s Award (1988); Stanford Medical Scholars Program (1988); Research Honors Award from Stanford Medical School (1989); NASA-Ames Certificate of Recognition (1990); Wilderness Medical Society Research Award (1991); Space Station Team Excellence Award (1996); NASA Exceptional Service Medals (1998, 1999); NASA Space Flight Medals (1994, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2007); NASA Distinguished Service Medal (2002). He also competed on the United States Development Luge Team and was ranked among the top 10 competitors in the nation during the 1988 Olympic Trials. He also served as an Olympic Team Coach for the Philippines during the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, Canada.

Andrew Schally

Dr. Andrew V. Schally helped conduct pioneering research concerning hormones, identifying three brain hormones and greatly advancing scientists' understanding of the function and interaction between the brain with the rest of the body. His findings have proved useful in the treatment of diabetes and peptic ulcers, and in the diagnosis and treatment of hormone-deficiency diseases. Schally shared the 1977 Nobel Prize with French-born American endocrinologist Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Yalow.

Dr. Andrew Schally was born in Wilno, Poland on November 30, 1926. He spent his childhood in the Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, but was fortunate to survive the holocaust while living among the Polish-Jewish community in Romania. He received his education in Scotland and England. In 1952, he moved to Canada, where, in 1957, he received his doctorate in endocrinology from McGill University. That same year, he left for a research career in the United States. He was principally affiliated with Tulane University, New Orleans, LA and also with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Schally's first breakthrough came in 1966 when he and his research group isolated TRH, or thyrotropin-releasing hormone. In 1969 Schally and his team demonstrated that TRH is a peptide containing three amino acids. The success of this research made it possible to decipher the function of a second hormone, called luteinizing-hormone releasing factor (LHRH) which controls reproductive functions in both males and females. The chemical makeup of the growth-releasing hormone (GRH) was also discovered by Schally's team in 1971.

In 1977, Dr. Schally received the Nobel Prize for Medicine. He is also a recipient of many other awards and honors. In 1974 he was given the Charles Mickle Award of the University of Toronto, and the Gairdner Foundation International Award. He received the Borden Award in the Medical Sciences of the Association of American Medical Colleges in 1975 and, that same year, the Albert Lasker Award and the Laude Award. He has held memberships in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Physiology Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Endocrine Society.

Since receiving the Nobel Prize, Dr. Schally developed the preferred method for treatment of advanced prostate cancer and proposed and demonstrated the efficacy of new approaches to therapy of prostatic, mammary, ovarian, endometrial, renal, pancreatic, colorectal, gastric and lung cancer, osteosarcomas, melanomas, non-Hodgkin's lymphomas and brain tumors based on these antitumor peptides. The hormonal therapies that he proposed are relatively free of side effects, in contrast to radiation and chemotherapy.
His discoveries have led to many practical clinical applications that are widely used and highly effective. He now has over 2200 publications, more than 1200 of which were published after he received the Nobel Prize.

Year 2007 recipients

Stanley Cloud

Stanley Cloud was a magazine and newspaper journalist for 35 years before he turned to writing non-fiction books with his wife, Lynne Olson. Their first book was The Murrow Boys (Houghton Mifflin, 1996) about Edward R. Murrow and the correspondents he hired during World War II to help create CBS News. In his journalistic career, Cloud was a reporter, a correspondent in the U.S. and abroad, a bureau chief, a columnist and an editor. He has covered wars, politics, the White House, Watergate, business, the courts, culture and local government. For much of his career, he was with Time magazine - as a correspondent (San Francisco, Moscow), a bureau chief (Bangkok, Saigon, Washington) and a press columnist. He has interviewed five presidents of the United States and covered six administrations. He was the principal reporter and writer for many Time cover stories, including the now-famous “Is Government Dead?” in 1989. He was assistant managing editor and managing editor of the Washington Star from 1979 to 1982 and executive editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner from 1982 to 1986. Cloud has written a play - a fictionalized adaptation of the book The Murrow Boys - that was workshopped at the Kennedy Center and presented in a staged reading at the center’s AFI Theater in February 2001. He is now working on a novel. He and Lynne Olson live in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. and are the parents of a 23-year-old daughter, Caroline. Cloud also has three grown sons - Michael, David and Matthew Cloud - by a previous marriage.

James Conroyd Martin

A native of Chicago, James Conroyd Martin attended college at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, and received his Master’s Degree in English literature at De Paul University in Chicago. For two years he taught English at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights. In 1974 he left for California to try his hand at screenwriting. However, shortly after his arrival he was befriended by John Stelnicki, who had translated the diary of his ancestor, Countess Anna Maria Berezowska, whose own personal crises coincided with the tumultuous years of the Third of May Constitution (1790s). It was at that point that Martin’s own odyssey began. In 1976, Martin, of Irish and Norwegian descent, committed himself to bringing Anna’s amazing story to the public.
He believed that the circumstances of her life provided a metaphor for the challenges of her beloved Poland. Years came and went, as did agents, editors, and various approaches to the manuscript. Martin moved back to Chicago in 1983, took up teaching again at Marian Catholic, all the while continuing his quest by writing on weekends and vacations. Ultimately, he self-published Push Not the River in 2001 and was vindicated by the success he found at Polish organizations and festivals, where readers wished to know how he had been able to see into and illuminate the Polish heart and soul. In 2002, the prestigious St. Martin’s Press took notice and signed Martin, bringing out a new edition of Push Not the River in 2003. Even before its successful release, so confident were the publishers of the exciting story that they asked Martin for a sequel. Although the full diary had already been employed in the first novel, Martin took the characters he had come to know and love and projected them onto the fascinating canvas of the Napoleonic era. The result, Against a Crimson Sky, was released in August of 2006 to glowing reviews. The Polish edition of the first book, “Nie ponaglaj rzeki” was a 2005 bestseller in Poland, and the first printing sold out in a matter of months. The sequel has just been purchased for a Polish translation. Martin is convinced—as are legions of his readers—that Anna’s story will one day find its way to the screen.

Lynne Olson

Lynne Olson has been a reporter and writer since shortly after her graduation from the University of Arizona. In 1971, she went to work for the Associated Press in Salt Lake City, and in 1972, transferred to the AP’s San Francisco bureau, where she specialized in feature writing. Later that same year, Olson was named to AP’s top feature writing team in New York, which focused on developing and writing stories about the country’s rapidly changing social mores. In 1973, she was asked by the AP to become the wire service’s first woman correspondent in Moscow, and she moved to the AP’s foreign desk to prepare for the assignment. She was based in Moscow from 1974 to 1976, once again concentrating on feature stories but also covering such news events as the Apollo-Soyuz space mission and President Nixon’s visit to the Soviet Union. In 1976, Olson was reassigned to Washington, where she was chosen to cover Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign. After Carter became president, Olson joined the Washington bureau of the Baltimore Sun, where she covered national politics and eventually the White House. In 1981, she quit the Sun to become a freelance writer. She has written for such publications as American Heritage, Smithsonian, Working Woman, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Ms., Elle, Glamour, Washington Journalism Review and Baltimore Magazine. She also taught journalism for five years as an assistant professor at American University in Washington.

Olson and her husband, Stanley Cloud, are co-authors of The Murrow Boys, which was named one of the best books in 1996 by Publishers Weekly. Freedom’s Daughters, Olson’s second book, is the first comprehensive history of women in the civil rights movement. Published by Scribner in February 2001, it won a Christopher Award in 2002. Olson joined with Cloud again to write A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II, published by Alfred A. Knopf in September 2003. Olson’s fourth book, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in April 2007. She is now working on a book about how the occupied countries of Europe, prominently including Poland, continued the fight against Hitler from London and helped win World War II.

Thaddeus Piotrowski

A native of the province of Wolyn (Volhynia–formerly a part of Poland, now in Ukraine),
Dr. Thaddeus Piotrowski received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire in Manchester, where he also teaches courses in anthropology and the Holocaust, and where he served as the Associate Dean of Faculty. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Associate Professor Award, the Faculty Scholar Award, and a three-year Carpenter Professorship Award (all from the University of New Hampshire), as well as the Cultural Achievement Award from the American Council for Polish Culture, the Literary Award from the Polish Sociocultural Centre of the Polish Library in London, and the Interpreter of Perennial Wisdom Award from the Monuments Conservancy of New York. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Artwork of Jan Komski, Auschwitz Eyewitness.

His major books include Vengeance of the Swallows (1995), Poland’s Holocaust (1998), Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn (2000), The Indian Heritage of New Hampshire and Northern New England (2002), and The Polish Deportees of World War II (2004). In addition, Professor Piotrowski has authored several minor works, including 12 studies of Manchester’s various ethnic groups.
In Manchester, he has served as president of the International Center and was a board member of the Presidents’ Council and the Human Services Council. He has also served as a book editor, book reviewer, manuscript referee, and translator. He has given over 50 talks on local and regional ethnic history, east central European history and the Holocaust to university audiences, the general public and professional organizations in America, Canada, England and Poland.

Year 2006 recipients

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz born 1962

A Warsaw-born Polish-American historian who specializes in Eastern and Central European history of the 19th and 20th century. His interest include Jewish-Polish relations, extremist movements, World War II and its aftermath. Born and raised in Warsaw, he arrived in California in 1982. He earned a B.A. degree from San Francisco State University in 1988 and a Ph.D. with distinction from Columbia University in 2001. Between 2001 and 2003 Dr. Chodakiewicz was an assistant professor with the Kosciuszko Chair in Polish Studies at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Since 2003 he has been teaching at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, where he continues his research. In April 2005 President George W. Bush appointed him for a 5-year term to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Dr. Chodakiewicz authored, co-authored, edited and co-edited several scholarly monographs and documentary collections as well as academic and popular articles in English and Polish. Among his recent publications are The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After (2005), Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939-1947 (2004), and After the Holocaust: Polish-Jewish Conflict in the Wake of World War Two (2003). In 2004 he co-edited a selection of Ronald Reagan's speeches published in Polish as My Vision of America.

Walter Zachariasiewicz born 1911

A devoted patriot, Zachariasiewicz emerged as a talented leader during his early years at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he was elected President of the Student Democratic Association and International Student Fellowship. During World War II, while crossing the Romanian border to join the Polish Army in France, he was captured and deported to the Siberian gulag. Liberated after three years, he was appointed by the Free Polish Government in London to establish a Polish Welfare Office in the Russian city Chelyabinsk that would assist Poles released from Soviet incarceration. Arrested by the notorious Soviet NKVD, he was accused of political crimes, interrogated and tortured. Freed after four months thanks to special intervention of the Polish Embassy, Zachariasiewicz was appointed to the Polish government’s Special Project office in Istanbul. His next mission was in Rome, where he was again in charge of care for Polish refugees. In 1946 he evacuated with General Anders’ army to London and two years later emigrated to the United States to become one of the leaders of New York’s Polish-American community. In recognition of his role, he was elected to the boards of directors of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Aid and the American Immigration Conference. Later he coordinated the activities of thirteen ethnic groups active in the elections campaigns of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. With a special place in his heart for his heritage, Zachariasiewicz became involved in the National Council of Polish Cultural Clubs and the Polish Affairs Committee of the Polish American Congress. He was also elected to the Board of Directors of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and personally appointed by the Holy Father to the Board of Directors of the John Paul II Foundation. His many awards include a distinction as Knight Commander with a Star in the Order of Saint Gregory by Pope John Paul II; and Knight Commander With a Star in the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland. Recently he completed a book titled The Independence Ethos of American Polonia.

Year 2005 recipients

Teresa Zylis- Gara born 1935

A lyrical soprano and one of the most accomplished Polish opera singers of the 20th century. She was born in Vilnius and studied in Lodz. In 1956 she made her debut at the Krakow Opera as the heroine of Stanislaw Moniuszko's Halka. Her next success at a radio competition in Munich in 1960 allowed her to perform on German stages in Oberhausen, Dortmund and Düsseldorf and later at the renowned English festival at Glyndebourne. A real breakthrough in her career came in 1966 in Paris, where she performed the part of Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Juan. Later she was invited to perform in Salzburg with the famous conductor Herbert von Karajan, at London's Covent Garden as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata, then at the San Francisco opera and eventually at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Zylis-Gara has also worked with the opera theatres in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, as well as with Milan's La Scala and Vienna's Staatsoper. Her repertoire includes 24 parts in works by Verdi, R. Strauss, Puccini, Mozart and Chausson. Among her stage partners are such celebrities as José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. In the recent years Zylis-Gara has been devoting much of her time to teaching. She leads singing workshops in Monaco, where she now lives, as well as master courses in other parts of Europe and the United States.

Wieslaw Ochman born 1937

An internationally famous Warsaw-born lyrical tenor. Ochman debuted in 1960 at the Silesian Opera in Bytom and in the following years performed at the Krakow Opera and the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. His international career began in 1967 in Berlin, followed by opera festivals in Salzburg and Glyndebourne and engagements in Munich, Hamburg, Paris Chicago and San Francisco. In 1975 he debuted at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s The Sicilian Vespers. Soon he formed a permanent collaboration with the Hamburg Staatsoper and the Berlin Staatsoper. Since then he has sung in the most prominent opera houses and philharmonics (including La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, and Covent Garden) in the company of the greatest opera stars and orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic under Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan. Ochman has been a frequent guest at concert halls in Vienna, Munich, Cologne, New York, Milan, Chicago, Paris, San Francisco, Geneva, Zurich, Moscow, Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Barcelona. His performances are noted for refined and precise interpretation as well as suggestive acting talent. Ochman has also been involved at various charitable organizations that support culture and award scholarships.

Year 2004 recipients

Jerzy Hoffman born 1932

Acclaimed director and screenwriter, best known for his adaptations of Polish literary classics. Although he was born in Krakow, Hoffman grew up in Siberia, where his family was displaced during World War II. After the war he returned to Poland but decided to study at the State Film Institute in Moscow, from which he graduated in 1955. Hoffman debuted as a documentary director and gained critical acclaim early on. He ensured his place in the history of Polish cinema by filming the epic Trilogy of historic novels by Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz. He turned them into three films, debuting with Colonel Wolodyjowski in 1969. The Deluge, which followed in 1974, competed for an Oscar in the Foreign Language Film category. To make the long anticipated third part titled By Fire and Sword (1999), Hoffman had to wait for a change of the political system, because the novel described a 17th century war with Ukraine (which at that time was a part of Poland). In 2003 the director filmed another literary classic When the Sun Was God - a story about the legendary Slavic forefathers of the Polish nation. For his achievements Hoffman received four awards from the Polish Ministry of Culture and several prizes at national film festivals.

Barbara Krafftowna born 1928

Beloved Polish film, stage and television actress. She was born in Warsaw and educated at the prestigious Old Theater in Krakow. After stage debut in 1946, she performed mostly at the Dramatic Theater in Warsaw. Krafftowna’s melodic voice made her famous through television performances in the Two Elderly Gentlemen’s Show in 1960s. Her witty characters and songs are still popular among generations of the show’s devoted fans. Throughout the decades she starred in more than 30 television and movie productions, proving to be a remarkable talent in dramas and comedies alike. Some of her most outstanding performances include roles in films directed by Wojciech Has, such as The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (1965). Her leading role in Has’s How To Be Loved (1962) earned her the Best Actress award at the Golden Gate Film Festival in San Francisco. Krafftowna also worked together with such iconic Polish directors as Andrzej Wajda and Kazimierz Kutz. In 1982 she moved to Los Angeles but since the early 1990s has been frequently returning to Poland to guest star in film and television productions.

Year 2003 recipients

Jolanta Kwasniewska born 1955

The former Polish First Lady (1995-2005) grew up in Gdansk, where she graduated with a law degree from the University of Gdansk. There she met Aleksander Kwaśniewski, and they married in 1979. Later she established a real estate agency, where she worked until her husband became the President of the Republic of Poland. As First Lady she devoted her time to helping the disabled and the poor, with emphasis on children. In 1997 Mrs. Kwasniewska established the Communication Without Barriers foundation, making traveling abroad possible for many Polish orphans and disabled children. Together with her husband she also founded the Young Talent Help Fund, which sponsors underprivileged students.

Mrs. Kwasniewska is a member of Comité des Sages, established by the Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan to develop a global plan to fight drug use. She has received many awards, including the Holy Brother Albert - Adam Chmielowski prize for care for disabled children (1997), the international Order of Smile (1998), the Doctor Henryk Jordan medal for assistance to children and their families, the medal "For Your Children and Ours" granted by the American Centre of Polish Culture in Washington (1999),
The Golden Heart Award by the Polish Red Cross (2000), the "Optimus Hominum" Annual Award for Humanitarian Activities and the award For The Future of Children of Europe from the Hungarian Future of Europe Association (2002). In 2005 she was suggested as
a possible presidential successor. She ruled out a run, even though public opinion polls found that she would have been a popular candidate.

Martha Stewart born 1941

Media tycoon, “domestic diva,” business magnate and – in recent years – a subject of an insider trading controversy and a lengthy litigation. The story was hard to miss. Not everyone, however, knows that Martha Stewart was born Martha Helen Kostyra to a large middle-class Polish-American family in New Jersey. Instilled with a strong work ethic promoted by her parents, she mastered common household chores such as cooking, sewing, decorating and gardening early on, which proved to be the keystones of her success. She excelled in school and majored in History and Architectural History at Barnard College in New York City. In the meantime she also worked as a model. Later Stewart focused on developing business skills. She became a stockbroker and eventually opened a catering company. Noticed for her talent and great taste, she was approached by the Crown Publishing Group. The guide titled Entertaining, which she co-wrote, quickly became a New York Times Best Seller.

Stewart followed with more cookbooks and magazine columns and was gradually becoming a household name and a national authority on everything from baking to wedding parties. In 1990 she developed her own magazine Martha Stewart Living, and three years later launched a TV show. In 1997 she went even further, consolidating her various ventures under the multi-million dollar company Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Despite the legal turmoil and media frenzy that began in 2002, the resilient entrepreneur made a strong comeback. As of 2006, she is again involved in her multimedia business and has expanded the popular Martha Stewart Everyday line at Kmart. She is back on television with Martha, a show nominated in 6 categories at the 2006 Daytime Emmy Awards. Omnimedia recently launched a line of 650 Martha-style houses to be built nationwide.

Year 2002 recipients

Eleni Tzoka born 1956

One of the most popular Polish female singers. She was born in Bielawa, Poland, to a Greek family with rich artistic traditions. Eleni has been singing since childhood, and in high school debuted with her first band, “Ballada.” In 1975 she started to sing professionally with the band Prometheus, with which she recorded her first long play titled On the Sunny Side of Life. Since then, Eleni recorded more than 20 albums, including beautiful renditions of Polish Christmas carols. Most of her records reached Gold Album status in Poland, and in 1986 she received the prestigious “Victor” statuette. The mood of her songs is warm and sunny, celebrating the two cultures close to her heart. Besides Poland, Eleni has performed in France, Sweden, the United States, Canada and Australia.

Nikos Chadzinikolau born 1935

A Greek-born poet, translator, historian and an avid promoter of Polish-Greek cultural exchange. He came to Poland when he was 15. After majoring in Polish literature and linguistics, he worked as a teacher in high school and later taught Greek at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Dr. Chadzinikolau published more than 100 books, including 30 collections of poems, two novels and the first Polish textbook about Greek literature between 1453 and 1983. His many distinctions include awards from both the Greek and the Polish ministries of culture, a Gold Cross of Merit, Cavalier’s Cross of Polonia Restituta, Orpheus’ Gold Lire and Laurels of Acropolis. Dr. Chadzinikolau launched a Greek-Polish Friendship Association, which promotes Greek singers in Poland, as well as Polish folk groups in Greece. He has translated more than 130 Polish authors into Greek, including poems by Polish Nobel Prize winners Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska. He also translated hundreds of Greek masterpieces into Polish. Among them are such classics as The Iliad, Antigone, Electra, King Oedipus, Ezop’s Fables and Mythology.

Year 2001 recipients

Ryszard Kaczorowski born 1919

The last Polish President in Exile. He was born in Bialystok, in eastern Poland. When the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, he immediately joined the underground movement. He also continued activities in Polish scouting, which had to be carried out in secret. He was arrested by the Soviet NKWD and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to 10 years in a Kolyma Gulag. After an amnesty in 1941 President Kaczorowski joined the Polish forces forming under General Anders and took part in the 1944/1945 Italian Campaign, including the famous siege of Monte Cassino. Unable to return to Soviet-occupied Poland at the end of the war, he chose exile in Britain, where he later became the head of the Polish Scouting Union (ZHP) in Exile.

In 1986 he joined the Polish Government in Exile and after the death of Kazimierz Sabbat in 1989 became the sixth President of Poland in Exile. In 1990 Poland held first free presidential elections after the war. In December 1990 Ryszard Kaczorowski flew to Poland, where he handed the presidential insignia over to Lech Walesa during a moving ceremony in the Royal Palace of Warsaw.

Count Adam Zamoyski born 1949

A member of the old Polish noble family that left the country during World War II and stayed in exile during the decades of Communist regime. Count Zamoyski was born in New York and brought up in England, where he graduated from The Queen's College in Oxford. In 1960s he began to visit Poland, drawn by his passion for history and the interest in his heritage. In 1979 he published the award winning biography of Frederick Chopin, which has become an important reference for scholars. He soon wrote a biography of the pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski, followed by an account of the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920, and then The Polish Way: A Thousand-year History of the Poles and Their Culture, which stayed on the British best-seller lists for several weeks.

Subsequent works include The Last King of Poland, The Forgotten Few (a history of the Polish Air Force in World War II), Holy Madness, Romantics, Patriots and Revolutionaries 1776-1871 and 1812, Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow. Active in public life and the life of Polonia, Count Zamoyski has been a member of the Princes Czartoryski Foundation, Society of Authors, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, the Societe Historique Et Litteraire Polonaise in Paris and several other organizations. In 1981 he founded the Committee for Relief to Hospitals in Poland and in 1990 the Foundation of St. John in Warsaw, which helps the poor and the handicapped. He is also active in the Maximillian Kolbe home for the elderly in London. The Polish Government decorated Count Zamoyski twice with the Order of Polonia Restituta for his leadership and dedication.

Year 2000 recipients

Stephanie Powers born 1942

A veteran of over 200 television appearances, best known for ABC's 1980s hit Hart to Hart, for which she received two Emmy and five Golden Globe nominations for “best TV actress”. She was born as Stefania Zofia Federkiewicz to Polish-American parents in Hollywood, Calif. At 15 she signed a movie deal with Columbia Pictures and was labeled as one of America’s brightest rising stars. The stunning redhead appeared in several movies in the early 1960s and eventually focused on television, gaining international fame as Jennifer Hart. In 1974, Powers formed a relationship with actor and pioneer of African preservation, William Holden, and became involved in conservation work at his Kenyan ranch. Following Holden’s death in 1981, Powers became the president of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation.

She has been a tireless advocate of wildlife preservation and animal rights, but has not given up acting. In 1993 she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her stage performance in Love Letters. In 2003-2005 she toured the UK and the U.S. in the singing role of Anna Leonowens in a revival of The King and I. For her contribution to the television industry, Powers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Aleksander Wolszczan born 1946

A Polish astronomer who co-discovered the first confirmed planets beyond the solar system. Educated at the famous Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland, he moved to the U.S. in 1982 to work at Cornell University in Ithaca and Princeton University. Later he became a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, where he still teaches.

Professor Wolszczan and a Canadian astronomer Dale Frail carried out observations from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico that led them to the discovery of the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1990. The data analysis showed that the pulsar is orbited by two planets with a mass 4.3 and 2.8 times that of the Earth's mass. It was the first extra-solar system discovered in the Universe whose existence had been proven. The findings were published in 1992 and 1994, and in 1996 Professor Wolszczan received the Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize from the American Astronomical Society. Since 1994 he has also been a professor at his alma mater in Torun and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN).

Year 1999 recipients

Senator Barbara Mikulski born 1936

Democratic Senator Mikulski has represented Maryland since 1987 and is the most senior female U.S. senator. Born as the great-granddaughter of Polish immigrants who owned a local bakery,
she was raised in historic and ethnically diverse East Baltimore. After receiving her Master of Social Work from the University of Maryland, Mikulski went to work on the front lines of President John F. Kennedy’s war against poverty. In 1976, she ran for the House of Representatives, winning 76 percent of the vote. Although in 1986 Mikulski announced her retirement from politics, she decided later to run for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Senator Charles Mathias. She won the race, and since then has been re-elected with large majorities in 1992, 1998 and 2004.

Senator Mikulski has never forgotten about her heritage. She has been shedding light on the Soviet massacre of Polish officers and intelligentsia in Katyn and served as an honorary member of the Polish Women’s Alliance. Recently Senator Mikulski has been working together with Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) to introduce legislation that would designate Poland as a candidate for the U.S. visa waiver program. “Poland is a reliable ally, not just by treaty but in deeds,” Senator Mikulski reminded Congress in 2005.

Zygmunt Sulistrowsk born 1922

An ecologist and film maker, he has devoted 30 years to the preservation of the Amazon region at his 27,000-acre Great Ecological Reserve called The Forest of Life. Born and raised in Poland, he fought in the underground army (AK) and took part in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising during World War II. In 1946 he moved to Paris, where he graduated from the French Film Academy as a director-producer. He worked on several British productions and eventually came to California, where he established the International Film Enterprises in Hollywood.

In 1951 Sulistrowski visited Rio de Janeiro and fell in love with Brazil. Fascinated by the native Indians’ way of life and the beauty of the jungle, he made Naked Amazon (1954), which was nominated for the Grand Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival. Throughout the years many of his films were presented at festivals in Cannes, Berlin and in Brazil. Most tell stories about love, adventure and suspense in remote locations in South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. In 1988 Sulistrowski moved his office from Hollywood to Manaus in north-west Brazil and founded The Research and Preservation Center of Amazonian Ecology. In 1991 he built the Green Land Lodge hotel, where he promotes ecotourism. He also encourages research of the area’s biological and genetic diversity.

Year 1998 recipient

Norman Davies, Ph.D. born 1939

A British historian renowned for his publications on the history of Poland. Professor Davies studied history at Magdalen College, Oxford, and after stays in France and Italy went to Krakow, where he received his Ph.D. from the Jagiellonian University doing research on the Polish-Soviet war. Later he taught Polish history at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London, where he was a professor until 1996. Now Professor Davies is Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. The work that established his reputation was a comprehensive overview of Polish history titled God's Playground (1981), which made him immediately popular in Poland and after 1989 became required school reading. In 1984 he wrote Heart of Europe, a description of the role of the past in the Polish present. In the 1990s, Davies returned with two monumental works on the history of Europe as a whole (1996) and the British Isles (1999), where he sought to expose what he thought was the myth of a British nationality. His recent work, Rising '44, released on the day of the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, was enthusiastically received in Poland and abroad.

Poles have a special place in their hearts for Davies – not only because he has been shedding light on Poland’s history and its role in Europe but also for his dedication to the correction of persisting historical distortions about Poland, especially those related to the Holocaust.

Year 1997 recipient

Stanislaw Burzynski M.D., Ph.D., born 1943

Known for the discovery of a promising and controversial cancer cure: antineoplastons. His experimental treatments evoke skepticism, but Dr. Burzynski has used antineoplastons for 30 years in the treatment of more than 3,000 patients. Many survivors claim that he saved their lives. Dr. Burzynski received an M.D. from the Medical Academy in Lubin, Poland, in 1967. In 1970, he came to the United States and worked in the department of anesthesiology at Baylor University in Texas. He received a grant to study the effect of urinary peptides on the growth of cancer cells, and by 1976 isolated dozens of previously unknown peptides. After a series of tests he discovered that some of them – which he called antineoplastons - attacked cancer cells without harming normal cells. Soon he began using them on patients in his private clinic in Houston, raising eyebrows in the medical community. A 14-year long legal battle followed between Dr. Burzynski and the FDA.

The doctor – and his patients - emerged triumphant in 1997. Other medical research centers have replicated Dr. Burzynski’s work, among them the National Cancer Institute, the Medical College of Georgia, the Imperial College of London and the University of Kurume Medical School in Japan. He continues to save lives in his Houston clinic under the Hippocrates’s motto: “First, do not harm.”

Year 1996 recipient

Adam Joseph Cardinal Maida, born 1930

Born in the Pittsburgh suburb of East Vandergrift into a family of Polish immigrants, Cardinal Maida grew up surrounded by the Roman Catholic faith of his community. After serving in the diocese of Pittsburgh, he became a bishop in the Green Bay diocese in Wisconsin. In 1990 Pope John Paul II named him the Archbishop of Detroit and four years later proclaimed him a cardinal. Cardinal Maida became one of the founding fathers of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. It opened in 2001 in a grand ceremony with President George W. Bush, guests from the Vatican, U.S. Congressmen as well as Blanka Rosenstiel – one of the Center’s initiators and Cardinal Maida’s long time friend. In April 2005, following the Pope's death, he traveled to the Vatican to participate in the papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Maida has remained in touch with his roots by traveling to Poland. In June 2006 he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination. With a long list of academic titles – Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, degrees in theology and canon law and a doctorate in civil law – Cardinal Maida is first and foremost a servant of God: “Even in a dream I couldn't imagine the experiences that I've had as a priest” – he told The Michigan Catholic in 2006 – “just doing every day what I thought was God's will, responding to God's call. There were many happy moments, but also many challenging moments.”

Year 1995 recipient

Year 1994 recipient

Boleslaw Wierzbianski 1913-2003

Founder and editor-in-chief of an important Polish-American daily newspaper, Nowy Dziennik in New York City. His colleagues referred to him as “A man of principle.” “He wanted to influence his readers and was persistently objective. He understood the spirit of the modern press, believed in the power of the media and never feared taking a stand and searching for hidden meanings. His entire life was a struggle for a free homeland and a free press.” (Warsaw Voice News, April 3, 2003).

Wierzbianski's ties to journalism date back to his years at Warsaw University, where he studied law and economics until 1938. After the war he became the president of the Union of Journalists of Poland in Exile, and the president of the International Federation of Free Journalists. In 1956, he settled in the United States and 15 years later established the Manhattan-based Nowy Dziennik.
In 1989, Wierzbianski took part in the historic Round Table talks in Warsaw as a reporter of Nowy Dziennik and a representative of the Polish-American Congress. In 1999, President Aleksander Kwasniewski decorated him with the highest Polish distinction - the Order of the White Eagle.

Year 1993 recipient

Henryk de Kwiatkowski 1924-2003

A Polish-born American entrepreneur, British-educated aerospace engineer and a World War II veteran, de Kwiatkowski was a charismatic man of Old World charm who spoke 10 languages and owned a multi-million dollar fortune. After the invading German and Soviet troops had killed his parents and four of six siblings during World War II, he ended up in a Siberian gulag. De Kwiatkowski managed to escape and reach England, where he trained to become a pilot and parachuted into Nazi-occupied territories on secret missions. In 1957 he arrived in the United States, where his entrepreneurial talents flourished.

De Kwiatkowski made a fortune as the owner of an aviation brokerage firm with headquarters in New York’s Rockefeller Center. His interest in racing horses brought him to the pinnacle of this volatile business. He owned some of the best race horses in the world (including 1982 North American Horse of the Year, Conquistador Cielo); a Polo team in Palm Beach, Florida; and the famous Calumet horse farm in Lexington, Kentucky, which he saved from bankruptcy. He always remained a Polish patriot, emphasizing his heritage with pride.

Year 1992 recipient

Year 1991 recipient

Lech Walesa, born 1943 President of Poland (1991-1995)

Walesa hardly needs introduction. As one of the most widely recognized Poles in the world, he remains the symbol of Polish resistance against the Communist regime. In the 1970s he took part in the first demonstrations and strikes of Gdansk shipyard workers and soon emerged as an anti-government union activist. Fired and arrested several times, Walesa returned to the protesters in August 1980 to lead the inter-factory strike committee that linked workers from 20 factories in the area. The Communist Party leadership finally agreed to meet with Walesa and listen to the strikers, and in September the first Independent Self-governing Trade Union "Solidarity" was born. By the end of the turbulent 1980s marked by Martial Law, more protests and the Round Table talks in 1989, Solidarity won the parliamentary elections. One year later Walesa was elected president of Poland.

Today he heads the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw. In addition to many international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize (1983), he holds honorary doctorate degrees from several U.S. and European universities.

Year 1990 recipients

Loretta Swit born 1937

One of the most esteemed and widely discussed classical composers of our time. His nearly hundred compositions include four operas, eight symphonies, choral and chamber works and concertos. Penderecki grew up in Krakow, where he studied and later taught at the Academy of Music. In 1959 three of his works won first prizes in the Polish Composers' Union competition. His reputation spread abroad through such pieces as Anaklasis and Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, which together with the Passion according to St. Luke found an unusually wide audience for contemporary works.

Penderecki soon received commissions throughout Europe and the U.S. His prizes include the First Class State Award (1968, 1983), the Sibelius Prize (1983), the Premio Lorenzo Magnifico (1985), the Israeli Karl Wolff Foundation Prize (1987), a Grammy Award (1988) and a UNESCO International Music Council Award (1993). He has honorary doctorates from universities in Rochester, Washington, Bordeaux, Belgrade, Madrid, Warsaw, Glasgow and others. He is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Musikaliska Academien in Stockholm, Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires - to name just a few. In 1990 he received the Great Cross of the Order of Merit in Germany, and in 1993 Monaco’s Order of Cultural Merit. That same year he was decorated with the Commander's Cross with the Star of the Order of Polonia Restituta. Penderecki has conducted prominent symphony orchestras in the United States and Europe. In 1996 the performance of his piece Seven Gates of Jerusalem, commissioned by the city, commemorated the celebrations of "Jerusalem - 3000 Years" in Israel.

Year 1989 recipient

Year 1987 recipients