embassy events 2008 

Ambassador Hosts Irena Sendler Award Winners and Nominees at Reception  

5 May 2008

Ambassador Hosts Irena Sendler Award Winners and Nominees at Reception

Ambassador Victor Ashe congratulated the winners of this year’s Irena Sendler Award for teachers of Holocaust and tolerance issues at reception April 30.  The winners were announced to the public today at a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ambassador’s reception was held to honor the winners: Anna Janina Kloza of Poland and Andrew Beiter of the United States. Anna Klozais a Polish teacher in High School No. 6 in Bialystock, who not only teaches her students about the Holocaust and tolerance but trains other teachers how to do so.  She has also been the target of a hate Internet site because of the work she is doing. American winner Andrew Beiter, is from Springville Middle School, near Buffalo, New York. He is a social studies teacher and an example of someone who makes a difference. He develops creative and innovative methods of education and has held summer institutes dealing with Darfur, Holocaust studies, and other genocides.

The Irena Sendler Award recognizes primary and secondary school teachers who educate and teach in the spirit of tolerance and respect, who inspire their students to pursue these values in activities within their schools and communities. It recognizes individuals who promote peace, tolerance, and social justice and develop innovative ways to promote an appreciation of diversity and differences in their communities. The award is funded by the Goldrich Family Foundation in California with the assistance of the Metuka Benjamin of Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles. The award was initiated by Irena Sendler, whose amazing rescue of 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto continues to inspire all who learn about her work rescuing and hiding Jewish children from the various ghettos in Poland during the Holocaust. 

In attendance at the Ambassador’s reception were Metuka Benjamin and Rabbi Eli Herscher and all the guests from the Goldrich Family Foundation and the Stephen S. Wise Temple of Los Angeles (who helped fund the award), the first winners of the Irena Sendler Award - Norm Conard and Robert Szuchta, this year’s honorees and the other teachers nominated for the award this year, members of the jury of the Irena Sendler Award, and representatives of the Children of the Holocaust Foundation, the Life in a Jar Foundation and the Center for Citizenship Education.