Marian Turski

Marian Turski was born Moshe Turbowicz to a Jewish family in Druskieniki, Poland (present-day Druskininkai, Lithuania), and grew up in Łódź. After Nazi Germany invaded his homeland in World War II, he, his parents Eliasz and Helena Rachel, and his younger brother Wolf were forced into the Lodz Ghetto. Moshe attended the ghetto high school and joined a Communist youth group. In 1944, the family was deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Eliasz and Wolf were murdered upon arrival. Moshe was later transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp and in 1945 survived a death march before being liberated. After the war, he returned to Łódź, where he was reunited with his mother. He married Halina, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto. He has had a distinguished career in Poland as a journalist and Jewish activist. He managed the history section of the weekly news magazine Polityka from 1958. Since 2009, he has served as chair of the Council of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.